Graeme Royce
Graeme Theo Royce (alias Kramer von Ribbentrop, Graeme Wilkinson, John Xavier, and Denver Cardiff, among others), an Australian nationalist and political activist, was born in Ashfield, a suburb of Sydney and died in January 1997.
Life
Royce was a postal clerk in New South Wales, but was dismissed on 20 July 1959 (Section 62, Post Office Act, 1908). He was a member of the Australian Party. In 1967, he was a salesman, living in Hackett (Tryon Street). Together with Arthur Charles Smith and Brian Henry Raven, he founded the "Australian Nationalist Workers' Party" (ANWP) by 1969. Royce had led George Lincoln Rockwell, who wanted to visit Australia in 1961 "to confer with members of the World Union of Free Enterprise National Socialists in Australia", to believe that the ANWP had about 750 followers and a mailing list of 4000, although the numbers seem exagerated. Rockwell was denied a visa by the Australian government.
While the flurry of media attention had thrust Royce and Smith into the national spotlight, the ANWP had dissolved by the following year, with Smith moving to Tasmania before becoming the leader of the recently founded Australian National Socialist Party (ANSP) in 1963. As Smith has shown, the natonal socialists in Australia continued to have contact with Rockwell and Colin Jordan in Britain, but there were no more attempts to bring far-right figures to Australia from these groups.
He was a member of the Australian National Alliance (ANA) from 1978 to 1981. Founded in January 1978, it was one of Australia's earliest anti-Asian immigration parties. In 1981, the ANA merged with the Immigration Control Association and the Progressive Conservative Party to form the Progressive Nationalist Party (PNP), Strasserist in its ideology, which claimed a membership of 1,000. In 1982, it was folded and the National Action was formed by Jim Saleam and David Greason in its place.
National Party (1984)
- In the grievance debate last Thursday I made mention of one of our leading racist organisations, the League of Rights. Tonight I want to talk about an individual called Graeme Maguire. Graeme Warren Maguire is a leading figure in the National Party of Australia in the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney. But Maguire, under his real name Graeme Theo Royce, was and is one of Australia's most notorious nazis and Hitler-lovers. Last year Royce hosted National Party functions in the Blue Mountains which were attended by, amongst others, Senator Bjelke-Petersen. In 1959 this same man was the proud bearer of the Bronze Medal of the Order of Adolph Hitler, presented to him by American Nazi Party leader, George Lincoln Rockwell. Rockwell declared Royce the 'first international member of the World Union of Free Enterprise National Socialists'. Royce's nazi career is detailed in David Harcourt's book Everyone Wants to be Fuehrer. Not only was Royce one of the most public members of the tiny Nazi Party in the 1960s but also he was a notorious con man. In 1964 Royce was sentenced to three years gaol after pleading guilty to 16 charges of false pretence. The judge said of him: 'You are a clever and systematic rogue and your wicked, cruel frauds have caused broken hearts among many people who could not afford to lose the money concerned. I will see you don't take anybody else down for a long time'. But when Royce was released he continued his career as a con man in Sydney, Canberra and other cities. When he was asked in his bankruptcy hearings how many aliases he had, Royce replied that they were beyond count; in fact he had over 40 aliases. Things got a bit hot for Royce after Harcourt's book was published. He then moved to greener pastures in Perth where he soon joined the National Party. In May 1975 he changed his name by deed poll to Graeme Warren Maguire. Royce- Maguire returned to Sydney in 1977 and was soon a member of the national executive of the racist neo-nazi group, the National Alliance, which now goes under the name of National Action. In October 1979, Maguire-Royce, with two neo-nazis, Frank Salter and Myles Ormsby, set up a company called Eureka Publishers and Distributors Pty Ltd, which hired premises in Kings Cross. It was to distribute nazi and racist literature and publish a newspaper using the talents of another old racist, Frank Browne. The venture failed and Maguire-Royce was thrown out of the National Alliance because he conned it out of $3,600. After he was thrown out of the National Alliance Royce-Maguire changed the name of Eureka Publishers to Tristan Grae Shoes Pty Ltd, which operates a shop in Castlecrag in Sydney. But Maguire-Royce also operates a shoe importing business under the name Eleni Shoes Pty Ltd in Station Street, Blaxland in the Blue Mountains. The National Party presents Maguire-Royce as a respectable businessman when he acts as its spokesperson in the local Press. If anyone rings National Party headquarters in Sydney wanting to join the National Party in the Blue Mountains he is told to contact Royce-Maguire. Yet the National Party Leader in the New South Wales Parliament, Leon Punch, was informed many months ago of his real identity. Nothing has been done by Punch or others in the National Party of New South Wales or of Western Australia who know exactly who he is. It is no accident that Maguire-Royce is closely linked with the neo-nazi wing of the Liberal Party of Australia led by ex-war criminals Urbanchich and that old-time neo-nazi and anti-Semite, Geoffrey Holt, who is now a Liberal Party alderman on the Waverley Council in Sydney. Maguire, Urbanchich, Holt and Major Ashley-Riddle, who was an unsuccessful Liberal candidate in Waverley, are all together in Liberty Research, a far Right group operating out of the offices of Instep Shoes and Smith and Lane Ltd in Bathurst Street, Sydney. Smith and Lane is run by other old time extremists in the Liberal Party, Stanley Eskell, a former Liberal Member of the Legislative Council, and Raymond Lord. Lord and Eskell have for years been involved in fraud, including the infamous VAM Ltd case. Lord and Eskell have many dubious dealings with Nugan Hand. While Urbanchich, Alderman Holt, Eskell and Lord push their ideas in the Liberal Party, Maguire has found his home in the National Party. It is a division of labour, not of ideas. Both groups work hand in glove with Eric Butler's League of Rights. In Australia the National Party is covering up for these people. It is covering up for the League of Rights. Senator Bjelke- Petersen, whom we mentioned the other night, patronises this organisation. These extremists and their racism are having increasing success in these parties which are desperate and unprincipled enough to use racism, pure and simple, in an attempt to win votes. The Liberal and National parties have adopted these policies of the extreme Right. I find it, as many in those parties do, rather sad that this happens. They have taken that line on Asian immigration and the attitude to South Africa in recent times. The Liberal and National parties, through our Enoch Powell of Australian politics, the honourable member for Denison (Mr Hodgman), have adopted the dirty banner of racism to cover their nakedness. No wonder Royce, Holt and Urbanchich find a comfortable home in the Opposition parties.[1]
