A right-wing influencer who interviewed Pauline Hanson has described the fight to overturn a ban on the neo-Nazi White Australia party as “the last stand” for Australian democracy.
A week after distancing himself from neo-Nazi figures, an online influencer known as Ausmaxx has posted videos condemning the various criminal charges against National Socialist Network leaders.
Ausmaxx, whose real name is Andre Mamet, interviewed Hanson at the CPAC summit in London in the same week she met with anti-Islam activist and criminal Tommy Robinson, raising questions about her associations with fringe figures.
This masthead reported last week that Mamet had recently joined One Nation, a point that neither Mamet nor One Nation disputed. But late on Wednesday, after questions about Mamet’s later remarks, the party issued a statement saying: “This individual has not been a member of One Nation since May.” This masthead has learned that Mamet joined One Nation around May, raising questions about how his membership lapsed around the same time.
Mamet spoke about NSN founder Thomas Sewell in a livestream on X on Friday. He defended Sewell, who was born in New Zealand, against a judge’s accusations that he was un-Australian.
“It’s actually insane… He’s a perfect example of an Australian because he’s from the collective of what is the Anglosphere,” Mamet said.
Sewell founded the NSN, which the federal government banned along with radical Islamists Hizb ut-Tahrir. He also punched a security guard in Melbourne before performing a Nazi salute after he was found guilty of recklessly causing injury.
Mamet also posted a video on Saturday about neo-Nazis including Joel Davis and Michael Nelson. Davis was part of a delegation who held a large banner on the steps of NSW parliament that said, “Abolish the Jewish lobby” and chanted “blood and honour”, a Hitler Youth slogan. Davis was later charged over a post calling on NSN members to “rhetorically rape” MP Allegra Spender. Nelson was jailed for 21 days for performing a Nazi salute in Melbourne and wearing a meme T-shirt about the Holocaust which said “6 million? That’s a bit much mate”.
Mamet said of Davis and Nelson: “Political speech is being treated as a criminal offence.”
Mamet’s comments feed into a broader complaint from some on the right who say that laws are increasingly used to shut down debate on issues such as migration.
The NSN’s successor, the White Australia party, has been subject of a High Court case. White Australia has also been trying to register as a party. The High Court will hold a two-day hearing in September on the constitutionality of anti-hate speech laws.
“This is the final stand. In September, the fate of Australian democracy is decided on the banning of this political party,” Mamet said in the stream on X.
As Hanson’s party attracts supporters worried about ethnic diversity in Australia, One Nation will receive more scrutiny over the limits of its tolerance for hardline views. Hanson previously told the Inside Politics podcast that she feared her party was “infiltrated by extremists”. One Nation retains a big lead on the Coalition in the polls.
Mamet, who is promoting “March for Australia” rallies later this month, said he did “not support Nazism at all, but the purpose of democratic rights is not to protect only popular opinions.”
“I completely reject the ideas of ‘hate speech’ and ‘hate groups’. I don’t believe it is acceptable to ban a political group based on the government’s perspective… The hate speech laws empower the government of the day to ban anyone they don’t like”.
“That’s why this [High Court] case is so important: it will determine whether Australians holding views some find extreme can organise politically and be judged by the voters. What the government considers hateful today could be the White Australia Party, and tomorrow it could be One Nation.”
Some experts have argued that banning extremist parties can push networks underground and make them more difficult to monitor. In 1951, a referendum to ban the Communist Party was defeated in Australia.
Mamet said it was important to defend “the policing of free speech is a slippery slope which, if left unchecked, will lead to the criminalisation of all nationalists.”
“The concept of hate speech was literally invented in Stalin’s Soviet Russia. Does The Age support the atrocities of Stalin’s regime?”
Mamet’s support for Hanson’s party reflects its growing support among Australians worried about Australia’s rate of migration, which has been well above peer democracies over the past 20 years and is the subject of new proposals from all major parties to reduce numbers.
One Nation was forced to clarify its signature migration policy earlier this week. A proposal previously described as capping visas at 130,000 has turned into the party’s net migration figure, meaning the number of visas issues would be tens of thousands more than 130,000.
Adding to the confusion, new One Nation MP David Farley told The Conversation that there would be about 40,000 more migrants on top of the 130,000 because certain visa classes such as Pacific workers and nurses should effectively be exempt.
Asked if he had differences with Hanson on migration policy, Farley said: “Oh, there’s definitely a difference.”
But he later said he had convinced Hanson of the merits of his positions on the need to retain migration in agricultural communities. “We matched our positions. We negotiated our position to arrive at it,” he said.
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Paul Sakkalis Chief Political Correspondent. He previously covered Victorian politics and won a Walkley award and the 2025 Press Gallery Journalist of the Year. Contact him securely on Signal @paulsakkal.14.Connect viaXoremail.
