The Australian chapter of a white supremacist group on Canada's terror watchlist will host a concert at a secret location in Melbourne this weekend because there are no laws to stop it, Premier Daniel Andrews has said.
Key points:
- A petition with 28,000 signatures urges authorities to stop the concert from going ahead
- Mr Andrews said authorities did not have the power to stop the event but he was looking at changing the law
- Canada classified one of the groups hosting the event, Blood & Honour, as a terror group earlier this year
The Hammered Music Festival is being advertised online by hate groups Blood & Honour Australia and the Southern Cross Hammerskins.
Mr Andrews said the festival was shameful and wrong and warned anti-Semitism was on the rise.
The State Government was today handed a petition from activist group GetUp! with signatures from more than 28,000 people calling for the festival to be shut down.
But Mr Andrews said he was powerless to stop it due to a "deficiency in the law".
"Now we need to deal with that, but in the interim we need to call this out as a hateful event," he said.
"There is no place for that sort of bigotry, prejudice and hate. That anti-Semitic behaviour is simply unacceptable."
The white supremacist music festival has been held around Australia for about a decade, despite widespread calls for it to be banned.
The Hammerskins have been banned in Spain while Blood & Honour is banned in many countries in Europe.
Canada listed Blood & Honour as a terrorist organisation earlier this year.
The Premier said he was working with the Jewish community to strengthen laws so authorities could intervene to stop hate speech before it occurred.
Hate groups a 'clear and present threat'
Promotional material for Saturday's event described it as a memorial for a notorious British neo-Nazi.
The Anti-Defamation Commission's Dvir Abramovich said white supremacists had admitted music was the number one way they reached people.
"These types of gatherings are often used as an effective tool by racist extremists to inspire and recruit people for their warped cause," Dr Abramovich said.
"When you look at the recent massacres in Christchurch, Santiago, Pittsburgh and El Paso, there is a direct link between words, incitement and mass shootings.
"These kinds of groups are a clear and present threat."
Abiola Ajetomobi from the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre said the concert represented an unacceptable level of "cultural intolerance".
"It is not acceptable in Victoria as a state whereby migration has been one of the pillars that has built our community to what it is today," she said.
Trades Hall union secretary Luke Hilakari described it as a "dangerous" event and called for a worker boycott.
"You should stop work and call Trades Hall," he said.
"We will represent you and we will talk to your bosses, but you should not work on this event."