Australia First Movement

Australia First Movement was a proto-fascist movement founded in Sidney, Australia in November 1941. It grew out of a mildly nationalist publication called the The Publicist (1936-1942). Some of its leading members were suffragette Adela Pankhurst Walsh, W. J. Miles, Rhodes scholar Percy Stephensen, Xavier Herbert, as well as the famous novelists Miles Franklin and Eleanor Dark. Its advocacy of independence from the British Empire attracted the support of the Catholic weekly, The Advocate as well as the Odinist Alexander Rud Mills. It was anti-semitic and by 1938 was advocating a National Socialist corporate state, and a political alliance with the axis powers of National Socialist Germany, Fascist Italy and the Empire of Japan. The Australia First Movement saw Japan as a worthy anticommunist ally. Compromised by direct links with Japan, the organisation was suppressed in 1942, with sixteen members being secretly interned. Two weeks after their arrest it was publicly revealed by Minister for the Army they were being held.

References

1. The Australia-First Movement by Barbara Winter, ISBN 1-876819-91-X
2. The Puzzled Patriots by Bruce Muirden, 1968

See also

• Lineage of Australian Nationalist organizations and individuals

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