A South African man whose visa was cancelled after attending a neo-Nazi rally in Sydney was detained by immigration agents in a pre-dawn operation and taken to Villawood detention centre.
Matthew Gruter, a South African national, has been quoted by his organisation, White Australia, as planning to fight his deportation “via every possible angle” but the home affairs minister, Tony Burke, defended his decision to cancel the visa.
“What could be a clearer example of someone showing they don’t care about cohesion in Australia, than turning up to a Nazi rally?” Burke said on Tuesday.
Burke announced he had cancelled Gruter’s visa on Monday, more than a week after the neo-Nazi group’s anti-Jewish lobby protest outside the New South Wales state parliament in Sydney, which included chants of the Hitler Youth phrase “blood and honour”.
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The group – who described themselves as “White Australia, formerly the National Socialist Network” in their form 1 application – claimed in posts on social media that Gruter’s home was raided around 4am on Tuesday morning by immigration agents, and asked for donations on a fundraiser page to support Gruter and his family.
The group had raised $20,000 as of Tuesday afternoon.
Burke said on Tuesday that Gruter was taken into detention early Tuesday morning “between 4 and 5am”. He was taken to Villawood detention centre, where he will stay until he is deported.
“Multicultural Australia and modern Australia are the same thing. Someone who gets involved in neo-Nazism in Australia shouldn’t pretend they’re somehow patriotic. They hate modern Australia,” Burke said.
“My priority is that Australians feel at home, feel safe, that they are safe in Australia. Anyone who wants to stand in the way of that can find the full force of the law coming down on them.”
The shadow home affairs minister, Jonno Duniam, told Sky News he backed Burke’s decision.
“There is no room in Australia for clowns like that who want to come here and preach hate – go back to where you came from, frankly,” he said.
The fundraising page claimed Gruter would “fight to remain in Australia via every possible avenue”. One of the group’s leaders noted Gruter’s visa had been cancelled over his participation in a rally which had been approved by New South Wales police.
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Burke says the man has “very limited” options to appeal, because the visa was cancelled by a ministerial decision rather than by the immigration department, adding that he expects Gruter “will be gone very soon”.
It’s understood Gruter would be able to appeal Burke’s decision to the court system.
The foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, said there was “no place in Australia for those hateful views”.
“Freedom of speech does not extend to being divisive and hateful about people in our community. We don’t accept that,” she said.
United Australia Party senator Ralph Babet wrote on X: “You may not like what he [Gruter] has to say but in a free country you should defend his right to say it.”
