Authorities are being urged to add a right-wing extremist group to the terror list after its members burnt a cross at the foot of the Grampians on the Australia Day weekend.
They assembled around the local barbecue area, some shirtless with Nazi tattoos, and sipped coffee outside the Black Panther Cafe, which is staffed and owned by an Indian family. “We are the Ku Klux Klan,” one of them belligerently told a local, who declined to be named for fear of repercussions. Another heard the group screaming racist slogans as they got drunk on Sunday night while camping illegally at Lake Bellfield, a beautiful body of water at the foot of the Grampians’ granite peaks and ridges. When Halls Gap resident James passed the group on his mountain bike on Sunday afternoon in town, he was addressed with a Sieg Heil.
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State and federal authorities are being urged to take further action against a right-wing extremist group that burnt a cross and chanted racist slogans at a popular Victorian tourist destination over the Australia Day weekend.
Thirty-eight members of the far-right National Socialist Network burnt a cross â a ritual usually associated with the Ku Klux Klan â next to Lake Bellfield at the foot of the Grampians in western Victoria on Sunday evening. Tourists and locals heard the group chanting âwhite powerâ and Nazi slogans.
National Socialist Network members set fire to a cross during a visit to the Grampians National Park at the weekend.
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The first thing hiker Nathaniel Maxwell noticed as he trudged towards an ancient rock cavern in the Grampians National Park last Saturday was the sound of dozens of voices singing
Waltzing Matilda.
It was the Australia Day long weekend and as Mr Maxwell peered into the cave-like formation known as the Cool Chamber in central Victoria, he noticed that many of the men were wearing black T-shirts bearing a distinctive Celtic-style symbol. Others were wearing army fatigues. Some raised their arm in a Nazi salute. As Mr Maxwell walked away, he heard shouts of âwhite power!â
Alleged members of a far-right extremist group seen at Halls Gap and the Grampians.