Thousands rally against immigration

Thousands of Australians joined anti-immigration rallies across the country yesterday that the centre-left government condemned, saying they sought to spread hate and were linked to neo-Nazis.

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March for Australia rallies against immigration were being held in Sydney and other state capitals and regional centres, 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”.

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 government, told Sky News television, when asked about the rally in Sydney, the country’s most-populous city.