It's time to go around the courts with Sean Fustad on five double a Breakfast. We kind of hope Nazism had been confined to yesteryear.
But it's brilliant.
It's ugly headed Australia again as recently as this weekend here in Adelaide necessitated a pretty remarkable scene in court yesterday where fifteen people were in court. Sean Fusta was there to witness the bizarre series of events that's going to culminate in a test to a new South Australian law that I'm particularly interested in, Sewan, good morning to you.
Yeah, good morning. Look, in twenty five years, I've never seen a day in the courts so chaotic. And when I say that, I say that with all due respect to everyone that was arranging the court hearings, because they moved like a finely tuned machine in terms of making sure that everyone got into court, that they had their say, that bail was decided, that things were moved on. But nonetheless, when you've got fourteen originally and then a fifteenth that rested out the front and brought inside, going on with the beliefs that these people have, it was a chaotic day and full props to Magistrate Luke Davis for exercising the calm considered restraint that one wants from a judicial officer when they're dealing with this level of extremist.
Thought after the other, to have to deal with this sort of role call, how do you think this wouldn't come out in court because they're all separate individual charges. But how did Adelaide end up becoming the sort of venue for It's almost like gather around for fascists. Yeah, we will come from the four corners of the country and guys from Sunbury and Victoria and Kingswood, New South Wales, Sanford, Tasmania, Oatley, New South Wales. This a little shindig, like you know, it's sort of like forget Mad March, it's Fascist February.
Fascist February. If you look at some of the great work done by my colleague Luke Williams with his five month undercovering which is published in the advertisement the Weekend they talk about Luke talks in there about the decision to bring the NSN, the National Socialist Network Conference to adela If you think back a couple of years, boys, there was the one that happened up with the Grampians, and there were all those photographs and things. This is the same thing. It's just that Adelaide was picked to be the host city this year, and instead of having it out of the way in the middle of nowhere, having their little run around, they decided to have it right in the middle of the city and make a scene.
So in court, are these guys are they all preaching? Are they being unruly? Are they yelling out stuff or some sort of quietly going about the business. What was the demeanor of these guys inside the courtroom?
The demeanor was focused intensity. None of them were misbehaving, but all of them were very much continued subscribers to their beliefs. I think we were one or two in when the first one asked why his human rights were being violated. We were five or six in before someone started mentioning sovereign citizen style thought along the lines of I don't recognize your jurisdiction. One gentleman was particularly aggrieved, saying that he didn't recognize the jurisdiction of the court in any way, shape or form, and if he was given bail, he would refuse to accept it. So the court could do whatever it wanted to him because he didn't accept its authority. But at the same time, could he please lodge a formal complaint by the way that police had treated him? And the matagment quite rightly said, who are you lodging the formal complaint to? If you don't recognize my authority or the authority of anyone that's arrested you, how are you having that both ways? But as the day got on and we got more and more into the senior ranks of the NSN, all the way up to the leader Thomas Sule, you saw the calcification of that kind of thought. There was the remonstration that we weren't demonstrating, we weren't protesting, we were just mates walking around. Happened to be wearing the same clothing, but it's not an article of disguise, etc. Then it culminated in Seul when he was brought into the video suite. He was told by the guards to sit down. He didn't. He was still wearing the NSN I'm going to call it uniform. He was still wearing the NSN armband on his arm, and he spoke to the camera the whole time, saying you know, I don't recoon as your authority. This is political persecution, absolute outright political persecution. We've committed no crime. We just want to be free Australians, etc.
Etc. Etc.
So, even though he was granted bail in the same terms as every other member, he refused to sign it. After Seuel refused to sign it, there was apparently a bit of a kerfuffle because some of the other members of the NSN who had been given bail earlier in the day, suddenly decided they didn't want to sign theirs either, because Thomas.
Hadn't can you unsign it?
Well, I don't think they had signed it at that point because it takes time for the paperwork to be processed. Understandably, as we saw from the footage that came out. Cooler heads prevailed and everyone realized that maybe they could should take mister Davis's advice, because he said to them, don't be martyrs languishing in custody. If you truly believe what you're saying here, come back to court on bail and argue it under the free and due process of this country, rather than making yourself stay in prison. Nobody's keeping you here as a political prisoner. You can go, but you have to accept the authority court in order to do so.
So. Is this the first time Sewan that the South Australian laws that prohibit things like Hitler salutes and also displaying swashtikas or any type of Nazi insignia. Is this the first time people have been charged locally with any of those offenses.
I believe so, And if it's not, then it's the first real test of it for the simple reason that we're going to see someone actually actively fight back against it. Because the symbol that's involved here is not something that is what I'm going to disgustingly have to use the phrase classic Nazi symbol. Most legislation in most of that's right. That's right, Most legislation in most of the country says that to be a Nazi symbol, it has to be something that was used in the lead up to or during World War Two. It has to be something that origulated with the National Socialist Party. It has to be of the era. South Australia's laws, it will be argued, can be interpreted to be broader and that any symbol that is used to push a Nazi or far right national socialist agenda can be considered a Nazi symbol. So the NSN logo is a modern logo. It's called the arrow cross. It's a cross made out of arrows pointing in a particular direction, so it's like a photo negative. It makes the symbol by not making the symbol. If you follow what I mean, the arrows you can see and it's the space between that is alleged to be the Nazi symbol. Sule's already set in court this isn't a Nazi symbol. I don't see how you can possibly claim this is a Nazi symbol. I will fight this. So we're going to get the first test of those laws. Rather than someone fronting up and saying, all right, it's a fair cop. I shouldn't have worn it. I'm just gonna take my fine and walk away, Sul's going to fight it. And the maximum penalties are twenty thousand dollars final twelve months jail.
It's more clear in a case like this, I think, because when these guys literally say in that look William's peace, if you want to join us, you need to read mind comp and so forth, like they're Nazis, and they say they're Nazis, and that's not really arguable, and I think they would even argue that point.
Well, one of them tried on the way out. He said, we describe ourselves as National Socialists, it's not Nazis. Okay, so we're splitting in five.
Yeah, yeah, I just but I guess in terms of the law, abstracting this a bit and talking it, whether the law here is lawful in South Australia, you've got to consider the potential of how that's going to be implied in the future.
Somebody's going to argue the slippery slow argument. If you ban this, then next thing they'll be banning the Weeks logo, that sort of thing.
Yeah, but I.
Don't think there's a sensible argument there. But we will see. I mean, the Arrow Cross is not just established in this country but around the world as a symbol of racial hate. So there is plenty of precedent to pick up and use. It's not like this is brand new. It's not like this is something that, no, you don't understand. One of the men in court yesterday wore a T shirt that said will to rise with the number two. If you google that shirt, and please don't if you google that shirt. The only connotations of that shirt are racially impugned connotations. That phrase means something and only means one thing. This symbol, the NSN symbol, means something and it only means one thing. It doesn't have other derivative meanings. And that's the argument that the police will be making in court. Of course, sue will be saying, well, this impugnes our constitutional right to freedom of political discourse, and that's going to have to be weighed very carefully.
That's what he's always arguing too, isn't that and say.
He doesn't have a lawyer, that's a lawyer for one of the others by Suell himself is going to argue that. So they're going to argue they're a political party and this impunes their right to implied freedom of political conversation and discourse under the Constitution. So we're going to get a constitutional argument from a group of people who have said that they don't recognize the jurisdiction of the court to determine that form.
It's going to be a tough road to prosecute that one.
Absolutely, it's going to be chaos. Yesterday, I think is just the prelude.
What are the sanctions involved you. We've got a few texts from people want to know from you, Sean, what kind of penalty you get for this yet?
Twelve months jail or a twenty thousand dollar fine, I think or both? I think or both. I can't be sure on that, but it is definitely a twelve month prison term or a twenty thousand.
Dollar fine, twelve month maximum prison.
Maximum prison term. This is going to stay in the magistrate's court. This isn't going to go before a jury. It's not going to turn into one of those cases. But it will potentially turn into a Supreme Court appeal and maybe a High Court appeal. Who knows, depending on which way it goes.
I think, as a city that's always civilized and genteel, they picked the wrong town to mess with.
I think so, and I think, essay police, it's not the Adelaide way. No, And look, essay police did a fantastic job yesterday of keeping calm around the area. I think the whole thing was executed in a very genteel manner. To pick that word from you, Pembo. It'll be concerningly fascinating to see where this goes next and just how much court time. This starts to take up as things roll on. As it is, the courts yesterday said we're not going to have them all come back on one day. Every single one of them was bailed to a different day, which means for a fourteen day stretch in March April, we're going to have a Nazier day in.
Court, just just to brievisit something you see just before we do go? Based on the language of the laws that's written in South Australia, these guys are being prosecuted here if everything the circumstances are all the same, based on your understanding of the laws elsewhere, Are these guys getting prosecuted for anything beyond loitering in other states?
In other states, No at the moment, and I think that's what has allowed the NSN logo to continue being used. It's because it's not, as I said earlier, classic Nazi. It's allowed to be used. So whether this will see some sort of legislative change around the rest of the country, I would assume that everyone's going to be watching this very closely because it is the sort of test that could quite significantly change the law in this country if it gets up great analysis.
As always, Sean fused it up again next week mate. Thank you