The 30-year-old acts as a leader and propagandist within the NSN, an explicitly racist group that calls for mass deportations of non-white Australians. He gives media interviews, holds regular livestreams with other senior NSN figures, posts lengthy messages on social media and speaks at public events.
In September, he attended a Western Heritage Australia event held inside NSW Parliament House. Video obtained by the Herald showed him speaking from a lectern in the historic Jubilee Room, using a Q and A section to ask about the benefits of “racism” and “supremacy”.
Joel Davis was arrested following an investigation by the AFP National Security Investigations (NSI) team. Credit: Australian Federal Police
A spokesperson for the organisers said they did not screen attendees.
NSW Police, who did not oppose the anti-Jewish rally outside parliament, are still investigating whether rally participants committed any crimes, such as public incitement of racial hatred. Davis’s speech contained a baseless and highly offensive suggestion about antisemitic attacks against synagogues this year and broad denigrations of “Jews”, as well as criticism of Jewish organisations.
The rally took aim at NSW protest laws and argued that “the white man” was disempowered in Australian society.
Davis recently laid out the group’s priority to gain registration as a “White Australia” political party in NSW and Victoria, suggesting that the NSW upper house was a key target.
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“In NSW, in theory, we will get more preferences,” he said. “That’s why we really want to be registered to contest this election in NSW”.
On Wednesday, the NSW government introduced to parliament new laws that would make it a crime to publicly display support for Nazi ideology, punishable by a $22,000 fine and up to two years in prison.
But the government is refusing to release the findings of an independent review of hate speech offences, which retired Supreme Court judge John Sackar, KC, submitted several days before the Parliament House rally.
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