It is sometimes argued that democracy suffers when autocrats manipulate legal frameworks or when institutions are weakened. Yet in liberal democracies such as Australia, a quieter but similarly corrosive danger is emerging: the normalisation of street-level hostility. This hostility, particularly towards migrants from the Indo-Pacific region, is an early warning signal of democratic erosion.
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In late August, thousands joined coordinated rallies across major Australian cities under the banner of “March for Australia”. What might have sounded like a deep expression of patriotism quickly revealed its darker side. Neo-Nazi groups featured prominently, while demonstrators waved banners demanding “stop immigration”. The message was unambiguous: Australian national belonging is to be redefined in racial, exclusionary terms.
Mario Peucker, an associate professor at Victoria University, says this mobilisation should trouble anyone who assumes white nationalist sentiment is only confined to the political fringes. The rallies attracted not only hardliners but also thousands of ordinary Australians who were undeterred by the overt presence of neo-Nazis.
For many, the grievances were real – housing costs, job insecurity, distrust of government – but those grievances were expressed through the age-old scapegoating of immigrants, especially those from South and Southeast Asia.
What was on display was not simply an anger about government policy but what Peucker terms “tribal rage”: the displacement of complex structural problems onto racialised scapegoats. In this sense, the march was not just about immigration policy. It was about who counts as Australian, who is entitled to feel safe in public, and whose very presence can be problematised.
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Equally revealing was the gendered performance of the rallies. Sociologists Steven Roberts and Stephanie Wescott point out that “March for Australia” was cast in a distinctly masculine mould. Predominantly male demonstrators positioned themselves as protectors of Aussie women, children and the nation against outsiders.