Far-right and anti-racism groups clash near Melbourne’s St Kilda beach
- Scores of police including some with riot shields and on horseback were on hand to keep the groups apart
Tensions reached boiling point at St Kilda beach in Melbourne as hundreds of far-right wing extremists and anti-racism campaigners faced off in a screaming match and minor scuffles broke out.
Scores of police including some with riot shields and on horseback were on hand to keep the groups apart. A police boat kept watch from the water and two helicopters circled overhead.
Activists Blair Cottrell and Neil Erikson organised the far-right rally at the beach on Saturday afternoon to “discuss” Melbourne’s youth crime and African gang problems.
“Our country is under attack,” Cottrell said over a megaphone. “Africans are 77 times more likely to commit home invasion. That’s not racism, that’s a fact!”
Independent senator Fraser Anning flew down from Queensland to attend the event and Erikson thanked him for his presence.
“The left-wing media likes to hang tags on us like neo-Nazis, racists and fascists, they are just ordinary hard-working Australians who pay their taxes,” Anning told reporters. “Australia has had enough. I think this is the start of something bigger. The revolution will eventually start. People have had enough of these people and they have got to be sent back to where they came from.”
In August, Anning’s “final solution” speech to parliament attracted condemnation from all sides of politics.
