SYDNEY: Thousands of Australians joined anti-immigration rallies across the country on Sunday that the centre-left govt condemned, saying they sought to spread hate and were linked to neo-Nazis.March for Australia rallies against immigration were held in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Canberra, Adelaide, Perth, Hobart, among others, according to the group’s website. “Mass migration has torn at the bonds that held our communities together,” the website says. The group posted on X on Saturday that the rallies aimed to do “what the mainstream politicians never have the courage to do: demand an end to mass immigration”. The group’s manifesto and flyers claimed, “More Indians in 5 years, than Greeks and Italians in 100,” adding, “This isn’t a slight cultural change, it’s a replacement plain and simple.”Australia – where one in two people is either born overseas or has a parent born overseas – has been grappling with a rise in right-wing extremism, including protests by neo-Nazis.“We absolutely condemn the March for Australia rally that’s going on today. It is not about increasing social harmony,” Murray Watt, a senior minister in the Labor govt, told Sky News television, when asked about the rally in Sydney, the country’s most-populous city. “We don’t support rallies like this that are about spreading hate and that are about dividing our community,” Watt said. March for Australia organisers did not respond to a request for comment about the neo-Nazi claims.The Anthony Albanese govt stands against the events planned for the weekend, the govt said in a release on Thursday. “All Australians, no matter their heritage, have the right to feel safe and welcome in our community,” the statement said.
