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or leave” and “The Battle of Eltham:
guardians of the aged vs. the refo
invaders”. A sudden gust topples a set
of speakers midway through Mental
As Anything’s “Live It Up”.
“It’s bullshit, I’m over it,” the
woman says. By “it” she means Mus-
lims, Islam, refugees, asylum seekers,
welfare cheats, politicians, political cor-
rectness, burqas and Safe Schools. She
won’t give her name because “you can’t
trust the media”. She has two young
children and says she’s in her 30s.
“Our history, our culture, our
Aussie pride is being stolen,” she adds.
But there’s little evidence of that
theft here today. The microphone is
shared between members of the Party
for Freedom, True Blue Crew, United
Patriots Front and an Akubra-wearing
member of Aussie Farmers First, who
rail against everything from refugees
and Muslims to socialists and soy lattes.
Police keep the tight pack of
protesters (or as they prefer to be
called, “patriots”) corralled in a small
section of the park. Within the crowd
gathered on the grass is 20-year-old
Penny Tridgell, dressed in a DonaldTrump T-shirt and a red cap with the
slogan “Make Australia Great Again”.
She’s flown in from Mount Druitt, in
western Sydney, to rally against the
“freaking refugees”.
“I love Trump because he’s a freak-
ing legend,” she says. “He stands for
loving his country and being proud of it,
and not being ashamed. We get called
racists because we love our country, we
want to keep it proudly Australian.
Where’s your average Anglo-Saxon
these days? It’s ‘spot the Aussie’.”
I’m in Eltham to spot one type
of Aussie in particular: Australian
women, who have played a significant
role in the resurgence of the country’s
far-right. This influence is often over-
shadowed by footage of angry men with
Southern Cross tattoos.
But somewhat surpris-
ingly, many women sit inthe senior ranks of some of Australia’s
most controversial anti-Islam groups.
Today they’re here in force, waving
Australian flags, chanting slogans and
wearing T-shirts saying: “Rapefugees
not welcome – stay away.”
Among them is North Fitzroy
grandmother Margaret Lennon, 65,
who has bright red hair and a shirt
calling for a ban on Sharia law. She
says her peers are joining the far-right
out of a sense of national pride and con-
cerns over Islam’s treatment of women.
“It is the beginning of a movement,”
she says, looking around. “We are
coming out and speaking out, where
before we were frightened to. People in
this country are entitled to have their
say and women are having that now.”Above and right: anti-
Islam and Trump-style
slogans are popular with
Australia’s far-right
movements. Left: North
Fitzroy grandmother
Margaret Lennon is
calling for a ban on
Sharia law in Australia.
Above left: police
oversee the Eltham rally.From left: Reclaim Australia
organiser Monika Evers;
Debbie Robinson, president
of the Australian Liberty
Alliance; Kirralie Smith,
founder of Halal Choices.