ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the significant role of environmental politics among far-right actors in Australia's political history, with a focus on events occurring throughout the twentieth century. The discussion highlights how colonial genocide against Indigenous people laid the groundwork for Australian nationalism, which was further shaped by the economic exploitation of land, and nativist, masculine identities centred around controlling nature. Prominent white nationalist influences in Australian political history include early republican-labourist support for the exclusive rights of white workers, the New Guard's adoption of fascism during the interwar period, and industrialists’ opposition to socialism and egalitarianism in the early twentieth century. Cultural and literary groups in the 1930s and 1940s also collaborated with the Australia First Movement to adapt Odinist and Aryan ideals with the purpose of developing ‘blood and soil’ ideologies specific to the Australian context. From the 1960s onwards, nativist organisations such as the Australian League of Rights made deliberate attempts to infiltrate the early organic farming movement and professional politics. In the 1980s, radical nationalist groups like National Action advocated population-focused, anti-immigration responses to global heating. The chapter concludes by examining how the Australian Nationalist Movement in the 1980s emphasised militarism and veteran histories, while National Anarchists in the early 2000s superficially integrated bioregionalist ideas based on establishing autonomous, whites-only communities.
