Alice Brennan: Hi there, Alice Brennan here and welcome to Background Briefing.

Before we go any further, just a heads up, this story, this week contains some confronting content with racial themes and quite a lot of bad words.

Here we go.

Vice News Tonight: Jews will not replace us. Jews will not replace us.

Alice Brennan: You're listening to the sound of young men chanting in the streets of the US city of Charlottesville.

They're holding flaming torches and marching in a long procession.

If you haven't seen the images of one of the most high-profile far-right rallies in recent US history, it's chilling stuff.

Vice News Tonight: Whose streets? Our streets! Whose street? Our streets.

You've probably seen them online or in the news - they're fit, overwhelmingly white and they're the new face of the global white supremacy movement.

Alice Brennan: The alt-right has made a very public entrance here in Australia over the last couple of years too.

Blair Cottrell: Australian people generally feel ostracised from society because they don't have anything their allowed to be proud of. There was already division when I arrived in this society, I am merely pointing it out to you, so don't shoot the messenger.

Alice Brennan: And Alex Mann they've got a new haircut.

Alex Mann: That's it! They call it the "Fashy" haircut, short for fascist. It's like a modern-day short back and sides.

But basically, in the US and also here in Australia, the white supremacist movement is going through a bit of a rebrand.

So gone are the lace up boots and the skinheads and in their place are these ironic and highly offensive racist memes, which gives a bit of plausible deniability, and then there's the good old dose of anti-Semitism.

The fashy styles, and modern comms style has combined with this global rise of far-right politics and now particularly overseas and here in Australia it's attracting a growing number of educated young men.

Alice Brennan: What you found Alex is that the alt-right has a new strategy to influence Australian politics.

Alex Mann: We discovered a group of people who were talking about all this stuff online. Sharing the memes, liking each other's posts but when you scratch beneath the surface and you go into some of their closed Facebook groups we discovered that there was a real strategy to join Australian political parties and influence their policy agenda.

Alice Brennan: Now one of the hardest things that you found is cross referencing the online profiles of these guys with the guys in real life. There's a lot of avatars and there is a lot of covert on-line action, right?

Alex Mann: So, if you try to pin someone down on what they say online its really tough. So one of the things that we were able to find by looking in the closed groups that these guys were using and discussing their plans in was that they were also making plans to meet up in real life. So I had to do a lot of gold old fashioned gum shoe journalism and that meant yes lurking around online but also lurking on a stakeout.

Alex Mann: What to do when you're waiting for members of a far-right nationalist group to rock up to Friday night fight club? That's the question I'm thinking about right now. It's been forty-five minutes since I got here and not much has happened so far.

I'm trying not to look like a weirdo but it's hard to be inconspicuous when you're sitting in a car at dusk talking into a microphone.

For a little while there I had my phone up next to my head to try and make it look like I was talking on the phone but I don't think that's actually very convincing.

It's Friday night on a suburban street in Sydney's inner west.

It's busy with cars heading home after work.

Across the road is this nondescript shopfront.

I've been told this is the secret Sydney headquarters of the men's only club, The Lads Society.

The club describes itself as a community group but given the history of some of the guys involved, I've got some questions.

It was first set up in Melbourne, and there's talk now of setting up in other major cities too.

Right now, it's quiet and the lights are off but the videos they've posted online provide an insight into what goes on inside.

Lads Society Promo Video: This is the real deal this is no bullshit.

Alex Mann: Young men with boxing gloves duke it out in a flurry of punches, while others clap and shout in a circle around them.

Lads Society Promo Video: Sweep the leg, knock him the fuck out.

Alex Mann: Barrel-chested men lift weights in what looks like a garage turned into a private gym.

Australian flags adorn the walls.

The snappy video edits quickly chop between the punching and the weightlifting.

Then the video builds to a climax.

Lads Society Promo Video: It's a brotherhood, it's a community, it's what we need in this country.

Alex Mann: Comparing the garage where the promo videos are shot with online real estate photos of the Sydney property that I can see across the road, I've been able to confirm that this is definitely the Lads Society clubhouse, so I'm at the right place.

It's tough to pin down though exactly what the Lads Society stands for. Its online presence seems innocuous you know, it's all about creating a supportive space for men to get together and better themselves, and in turn, create a better Australia.

But the club is similar in several respects, to some of the most extreme far right men's clubs from around the world.

The nationalist messaging. The flags on the walls. The nostalgia over so-called 'lost masculine values.'

And then there's the fight club bit, using violence as a marketing tool.

The Lad's Society also has Blair Cottrell. He's one of the group's co-founders.

And here he is outlining his vision for them back in June. It's an interview with the alt-right media channel "The Unshackled''.

Interviewer: Hello everyone, we're here with Australia's most well-known patriot, Blair Cottrell. Welcome.

Blair Cottrell: Thanks mate.

Currently we're in our clubhouse. It's just a community group that myself and some of my colleagues built together, and so far it's really taken off.

Alex Mann: Blair Cottrell has a history of racially-charged activity.

He's called for photos of Hitler to be displayed in every classroom, and a copy of Mein Kampf to be given to every student.

Last year he was convicted of inciting contempt toward Muslims after staging a mock beheading at a rally in 2015.

He was protesting the construction of a mosque in regional Victoria.

ABC News Archive: We're just going to give you a bit of a taste of their own religious culture. Carry on brother. Allahu Akbar! Takbir!

Alex Mann: Blair Cottrell is appealing that conviction.

Blair Cottrell: All we want is the best for our own people. If I were a member of any other race in this world that would be something which would be commendable, even funded by the government. But because I am white it's evil?

Alex Mann: At the time of the beheading stunt Blair Cottrell was the leader of the far-right action group, the United Patriots Front.

Blair Cottrell: The UPF, or the United Patriots Front took after my personality I believe, in that it was explosive and almost impulsive.

Alex Mann: The group fell apart after its Facebook page was taken down in May 2017, and divisions opened up between its members.

Now, Blair Cottrell and others in the UPF leadership have reformed under the Lads Society banner with a new message for white Australia.

Blair Cottrell: The same people who were responsible for or were indispensable to the development of our organisation to the UPF, are still with me.

Alex Mann: Whatever the Lads Society calls itself right now, it's recruiting.

As Blair Cottrell explained in June.

Blair Cottrell: We're building a network, an organisation that's going to be more sophisticated and more organised than it ever was before.

We want to attract the disillusioned and patriotic peoples of this country.

We want to become almost a fresh nation within a nation, in a nation which is suffering a cancer almost.

Anyone watching this who wants to get involved, like, we're the Lads Society.

It takes a lot of courage to do this, in a time and society where you are denigrated for even having political views which go against the state's current social political dogma.

Alex Mann: Last week, at a Freedom of Speech rally in Lakemba, Sydney I met up with Blair Cottrell.

It's no coincidence Lakemba's population is almost 60% Muslim.

Blair Cottrell: When you have ratbag journalists whose mission in life is to ruin yours.

Alex Mann: Blair tells me that things have changed since that interview in June and that these days he's just a regular member of the Lads Society.

Blair Cottrell: I'm not actually involved in any decision-making process. I just kind of do my best to promote them, to promote the community group for the boys.

Alex Mann: And you totally deny that you're the co-founder of ...

Blair Cottrell: I'm not denying anything. I'm not explaining myself to you, I'm just answering your questions.

Alex Mann: You said that it was important to avert a crisis for our people. Do you mean white people?

Blair Cottrell: Yeah predominantly I think I mean white people, white Aussies. Yeah.

Alex Mann: So is Lads Society a white supremacist organisation?

Blair Cottrell: Why do you ask me that question, do you hate white people? Do you have anything against white people as an ethnic group?

Alex Mann: Okay now who have we got here... 1,2,3,4,5 more guys... ok it's now about a quarter to eight.

The Lads Society, even if it is simply a boxing gym or a Friday night fight club, is the latest project for some of Australia's highest profile white nationalists.

So I'm determined to find out: Who actually comes here? What do they do here? What vision do they have for this country? And what are they prepared to do to make it happen?

After weeks of trawling through closed Facebook groups and financial records I've uncovered a web of far-right connections between the members - connections to a global movement.

And I can tell you, conclusively, for the first time - the alt right, young, savvy, nationalist - are covertly joining mainstream political parties right here in Australia, and they're seeking to influence the heart of our democracy.

Across the world right now the conversation is shifting.

Brexit, Trump and the global rise of the far right have given licence to new voices on the radical fringe.

What was once considered unspeakable has entered the mainstream.

In Australia, we've got Queensland Senator Fraser Anning.

Senator Fraser Anning: I believe that the reason for ending all further Muslim immigration are both compelling and self-evident. The final solution to the immigration problem of course, is a popular vote.

Alex Mann: His controversial maiden speech included a Nazi phrase referring to the extermination of Jewish people.

Something Anning says was taken out of context.

Whatever the case, the speech has made him a poster boy for the alt-right, a network of loosely connected groups united by a common vision.

In the US, alt-righters have taken to the streets with devastating consequences.

Vice New Tonight: Jews will not replace us! Jews will not replace us! Jews will not replace us!

AC Thompson: I think what we've seen in the US over the last couple of years is a rebranding of the white supremacist movement, or the white nationalist movement, as the alt-right.

Alex Mann: AC Thompson first reported on white supremacists 20 years ago.

He says for a long time the US movement went quiet, but there's been a recent resurgence.

AC Thompson: So, middle of 2016, there was all this new energy coming into the white power movement, all kinds of new groups, new publications, new leaders, and a whole new way of organising, which was organising via Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and other social platforms.

I think the thing that's interesting about the alt-right is that it's created an entire subculture. So it's as much a subculture as it is a political movement.

Alex Mann: These days AC reports for ProPublica and PBS Frontline. He says white supremacy has a new haircut.

AC Thompson: And this is a subculture with its own hairstyles, with its own fashion styles, with its own lingo, and jokes and music, there's a whole musical scene called Fash Wave. And that is sort of becoming this insular community that these people inhabit.

Alex Mann: Last year that insular subculture hit the mainstream in a dramatic way.

Vice New Tonight: Whose streets? Our streets! Whose streets? Our streets!

AC Thompson: I was there in Charlottesville when all that transpired.

Alex Mann: The Unite The Right rally in Charlottesville turned deadly when an alleged Neo-Nazi drove his car into a crowd of counter demonstrators, killing a 32-year-old woman and injuring others.

AC Thompson: The way it was going to end was with somebody getting killed. And I was not surprised when Heather Hyer was murdered. I was saddened and I was sickened and I was at the scene very shortly after it happened, and there were bodies everywhere because the assailant drove a car into a crowd of people. But I was not at all surprised that that happened.

Alex Mann: The alt-right is not a cohesive movement.

Its members exist on a spectrum from right-wing conservatives and nationalists at one end, right through to hardcore white supremacists and neo-Nazis at the other.

There is constant debate about what makes a patriot, who are the genuine nationalists, and just where exactly everybody fits into that.

Now, the highest profile public figureheads of this global new right are coming to Australia, and they're finding enthusiastic audiences.

AC Thompson: I think that's been a real phenomenon right, the rise of the sort of right wing media star and the fact that these sort of right wing media figures are really heavily trafficking in the politics of resentment, polarisation and demagoguery. And that's sort of been the currency for them, that is their schtick, that's their deal right?

Alex Mann: In December last year, it was Milo Yiannopoulos.

Milo Yiannopoulos: Soon feminists will be so endangered they really will be like buffaloes, we'll be keeping them in zoos, as ugly reminders of our hideous past, something like a Holocaust museum -oh stop it!"

Alex Mann: In July this year Canadian Lauren Southern visited.

Lauren Southern: If I were black I could say I'm proud, If I were Asian I could say I'm proud, If I were any other ethnicity I could say I'm proud, because that's how our culture is, but if I am white and I say I'm proud, the media will go nuts.

Alex Mann: And very soon, in November, Gavin McInnes, co-founder of VICE magazine, and who has since gone on to create an extremist men's club called The Proud Boys is coming to town.

Gavin McInnes: We have one caveat and you have to be a western chauvinist. And you have to think the west is the best. And it exploded.

Alex Mann: The most recent high profile right wing visitor to our shores though is the man dubbed "Mr Brexit."

Alex Mann: I'm standing on the edge of the Wharf in Sydney and there's probably I mean there is at least a few hundred-people waiting in queue here at the moment.

Alex Mann: As the former leader of the UK Independence Party, Nigel Farage is artful in walking the line of what's acceptable to say in public and what's not.

He's said he feels "awkward" hearing foreign languages on the train and has declared that parts of the country are "unrecognisable" because of the number of migrants there.

At the height of the Brexit campaign, he was accused of deploying Nazi-style propaganda in a bid to stir up anti-immigrant sentiment.

Something he denies.

The mix of people in the line is actually pretty eclectic.

There's the oldies that you'd expect but there's also quite a decent mix of younger men and women. Just saw a group of guys with the Sydney University t-shirts on and slappin' high fives and thanking each other for coming along.

There's clearly an appetite among certain parts of the community to hear voices like Nigel Farage's.

Woman: Well it's called right wing politics but for me it's called common sense politics. And they just really appeal to me and they're silenced in the media. Mainstream media doesn't want to know about it.

Alex Mann: I'm here.

Woman: yeah that's very good.

Man: I think the left-wing politics is slowly eating itself.

Woman: Yes. There's something in the air and I think people are starting to understand that they're manipulated and force fed.

Alex Mann: Okay, I just followed the last of the people in I'm going to head in myself now, so I'll switch the recorder off.

Inside the venue I find my way into a seat and switch my recorder back on.

Nigel Farage: We are living through the most exciting political times that we have seen in decades.

It doesn't matter how much protesters scream, it doesn't matter how much negativity we get from state sponsored broadcasters. Are you here ABC? Are you here?

Alex Mann: I look around at a large group of young men one of them looks my way as they clap and laugh along.

They're dressed in chinos and boots, chequered shirts, tortoiseshell glasses frames, slick hair.

And they're loving the show.

Nigel Farage: We are now living through a global political revolution, and we the people will bring down the establishment.

Alex Mann: Looking around at the handful of Donald Trump's 'Make America Great Again' hats that are scattered throughout the crowd, I wonder who here, if anyone, will take what they've heard today and do something really radical with it?

It's impossible to tell. But here in Australia, it's clear that people are watching what's happening around the world and learning from it.

And now, there's a handful of new groups, with names like Identity Australia and the True Blue Crew emerging with new tactics.

One of the most radical is Antipodean Resistance.

Okay, so where are we right now?

Mike Kelly: So this is focal point plaza, where our electorate office is in Queanbeyan and in the walkway through the middle of the shopping area here is the front door to my electorate office and this is where the pigs' entrails was found.

Alex Mann: Mike Kelly is a former military man and a Federal Labor MP.

Last month his staff arrived at work to find the entry to his office covered in pigs' blood and entrails.

Mike Kelly: It was a pretty disgusting look so pigs' blood was sprayed on the door, and there were just parts of pig just on the walkway here right in front of the door.

Alex Mann: It was a targeted attack but it wasn't the first racist attack that Mike Kelly had received.

Mike Kelly: The first incident of that type was for my Bega office on the 26th of February this year. A poster was placed on our office window there which attacked multiculturalism, talked about rejecting Jewish poison and it was emblazoned with a swastika. So it was obvious that this group knew that my wife and son are Jewish. And so you know were particularly targeting that aspect of their race hate attacks on me because of that connection.

Alex Mann: The poster bore the name Antipodean Resistance on its website and the words, "We're the Hitlers you've been waiting for."

Mike Kelly: It certainly signalled to me kind of an escalation of this kind of activity. The poster itself was quite sophisticated in its graphics and seemed to me we were facing much more organised threatening sort of rise of groups of this kind in Australia.

Alex Mann: In early September someone started plastering Antipodean Resistance stickers around Bega.

They carried the group's name and a web address and in the middle was a large swastika.

Mike Kelly's office there was also hit, as was a local school and a 'Refugees Are Welcome' sign.

Less than two weeks later, those pig remains turned up on his Queanbeyan office doorstep.

Mike Kelly: Yeah that was taking it to another level.

Alex Mann: The police are still investigating the attack.

Meanwhile, the peak organisation that represents Jews in Australia, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, has been tracking the movements of Antipodean Resistance.

Last year, the council concluded that Antipodean Resistance was responsible for a fifth of Australia's reported anti-Semitic incidents.

In September alone, Antipodean Resistance had posted about how they'd targeted universities in Melbourne and Sydney, and a pride March in Brisbane with posters carrying slogans like "family or faggotry - life or death" and stickers with swastikas.

When I contacted the group for an interview, they denied being responsible for the pig guts attack on Mike Kelly's office.

Mike Kelly: I am one member of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security and we get briefings regularly from the agencies about threats that exist in Australia and of course a lot of people have focused on the threat from Islamist extremism. But the agencies are just as concerned about extreme right-wing violence and threats.

Alex Mann: ASIO and the Australian Federal Police both say they target criminals and criminal activity, not ideologies or backgrounds, and that all extremist groups are taken seriously, regardless of the background of the perpetrator.

Membership to Antipodean Resistance is restricted to young people in their teens and twenties and the group explicitly forbids entry to and I'll read it: "blacks, Asians, Jews, mixed abominations, poofters or other sexual deviants."

In April this year, one of its members was photographed putting up posters and when the photo was published online, the young man was identified as a member of the Lads Society.

Mike Kelly: Well very much concerned about that. You know that young people should have those attitudes you know I find distressing.

I think they've been encouraged by the success of demagoguery and right-wing activism and you know manipulation of the media, it's been occurring right around the world now.

Clearly these people see politics now in this new world environment of social media and manipulation as a means to their ends of how they can both take over political processes and exploit them to prosecute their ideology.

Ethan Gordon: We were blindsided. Yeah.

This was an infiltration by another group with a very particular ideological motivation or seemed to have a very particular ideological motivation.

Alex Mann: 23-year-old Ethan Gordon has been a member of the NSW Young Nationals for four years.

He was in Lismore for the state conference in May this year.

Ethan Gordon: It's fun to go to a Young Nats conference. You know you have a lot of friends in the Young Nats and everyone is up for a good time like most people in the regions are.

Alex Mann: The party has, in the past, been outspoken on progressive or liberal issues.

Ethan Gordon: My family has a farm up in the Northern Tablelands and when I did join I was I was pleased to see that actually there's quite a progressive voice in the Young National Party.

Alex Mann: NSW Young Nationals recently voted for marriage equality, increasing the cap for Syrian refugees and an emissions intensity scheme.

So that to you said that "okay there's a bit more room in this party for ideas other than the sort of stereotypes of country people and country conservatives."

Ethan Gordon: Yeah absolutely, yeah. Really breaking out of that stereotype.

Alex Mann: At this year's state conference, they were debating the policy platform and electing new leadership.

Ethan was the communications officer for the NSW executive.

And straight away he noticed that something was different.

Ethan Gordon: Well this conference had a very different tone than previous conferences straight away with an influx of new members.

I guess what was weird about about that was that they joined at the same time and they joined just in time to be eligible to vote on motions and on leadership positions within the party.

Alex Mann: Is that unusual?

Ethan Gordon: That is unusual especially in the large quantity of new members we had.

Alex Mann: The influx of new members with city not rural addresses was concerning.

So at this point you're thinking, something doesn't quite add up.

Ethan Gordon: Yeah, we were.

Alex Mann: The business of the conference continued and members put forward then voted on motions and the policy platform grew firmer.

Then, one of the new members stood up and put forward a motion about migration control.

The member's name was Clifford Jennings.

Ethan Gordon: The next thing that happened was I and I'll read it to you actually: "that the NSW Young Nationals endorse immigration from culturally compatible peoples and nations but support strict immigration controls from those who are not".

Alex Mann: Clifford Jennings also put forward motions on offering refugee status to white South African farmers, and the expansion of coal, on top of the migration control motion.

Ethan Gordon: A lot of these new members you know had remained relatively silent during a lot of previous motions on agriculture, or roads and stuff like that, stuff Young Nats usually debate. But when we got to this motion suddenly everyone is up almost simultaneously you know to lining up at the microphone to have their say on it voting for the motion.

Alex Mann: It looked like a classic branch stack to Ethan and the other members of the executive.

As if Clifford Jennings and the other new members had a specific goal: to push the party to the right.

Ethan Gordon: It felt uncomfortable, it felt like we really needed to fight at this AGM, like there was a lot at stake.

Alex Mann: Ethan and the other Young Nats started looking around online for information about Clifford Jennings and the other new members.

What they found made them even more suspicious.

Interviewer: We're now doing a live interview here with Clifford Jennings.

Alex Mann: You can barely hear it here but this is Clifford Jennings in a video from January last year claiming to be the founder of the Alt-Right in Australia.

Clifford Jennings: So I've been involved in nationalist circles for about eight or so years now. I created alt-right Australia."

Alex Mann: If you missed that, he said, "I created alt-right Australia."

Some members posted jokes and references to Hitler, while others echoed US alt-right talking points.

Ethan Gordon: We were concerned that there was an already pre-organised group infiltrating the Young Nationals in an attempt to gain positions of power so they could have influence over policy.

Alex Mann: That motion on culturally compatible immigration was narrowly defeated.

But with the support of the new members, Clifford Jennings the self-confessed founder of the alt-right in Australia was elected to the NSW Young Nationals party executive.

Ethan Gordon: Yeah, it was completely unexpected. And of course you don't want to jump to any conclusions or make any assumptions. But the mounting evidence was certainly concerning at the time and still is concerning.

Kaz Ross: The first thing that I saw was some posting of "Congratulations to us! We all got elected!" And when I hunted around I was a bit shocked to see that it was Young Nationals.

Alex Mann: Dr Kaz Ross's Hobart office is crowded with books, old armchairs, lamps, and two desks.

Her interest in far-right politics is almost accidental, she's actually a lecturer in Asian Studies at the University of Tasmania.

Kaz Ross: I started off tracking anti-Chinese sentiment and I got involved in looking at anti Chinese action on Facebook generally in Australia and there's a very, very short pathway from anti-Chinese sentiment to neo-Nazis.

Alex Mann: Dr Ross became fascinated with the way these Australian groups were mimicking the US alt-right groups, using memes and social media to share racist in-jokes filled with coded references to Hitler and theories of a global Jewish conspiracy.

Kaz Ross: It became really clear that there were a number of Facebook profiles that were sharing the same sort of stuff and liking each other's stuff.

And then I gathered together a list of names of these people. I became aware that there were groups operating.

And they wanted to shift that into real life action and the main real world goal that I could see was actually shifting political debate in Australia to the right as much as possible.

Alex Mann: This is why I've come to Hobart, to meet with Dr Ross in person.

Kaz Ross: Did you want to do a graph search of a few of them?

Alex Mann: Ah actually that's not a bad idea.

Dr Ross has access to a series of far-right closed Facebook groups with names like Infidel Australia, the New Guard and more recently, the Fraser Anning Supporters.

She's in touch with a group of people who monitor right wing activity using fake Facebook profiles, screenshots, and hidden identities they're called the White Rose Society.

I'm here to verify the authenticity of all the screenshots she's been sending me.

I've brought with me a list of 25 names. Each one of these people joined the Young Nats just prior to the NSW state conference.

They're the ones that Ethan Gordon, the Young Nat I spoke to earlier, suspects of joining the party with a hidden agenda.

Right now, we're trawling through old posts in a closed Facebook group called The New Guard.

It describes itself as an Australian fascist group:

"The New Guard is for the people. We are the soil in which the movement will grow. Our objectives are to enable nationalists to begin businesses, acquire funds, learn skills, self-improve, connect socially and spiritually, all in order to form long-lasting communities. From many, we are one."

Alex Mann: So where are we here? This is 12 March. So we've gone past it. But who else liked that post?

Kaz Ross: So, we see here this is from a chap who was the originator of the New Guard, one of the two admins. "Welcome to the new blood. I'm proud to see us growing. We need to take this offline. Step up, lead your community. We have a duty to this nation and Western civilisation.

Alex Mann: The New Guard's membership list includes at least three of the Young Nats who recently joined and who were present at the state conference back in May.

There's Nicholas Walker, who goes by the name "Niklaus Velker" online.

On April 30 this year, the anniversary of Hitler's death, he posted to his own Facebook page "Rest in Peace 88."

8 is the 8th letter of the alphabet, H. So 88 becomes HH...Get it? It's coded... "Heil Hitler."

Going down the list there's another Facebook profile under the name Joel Harley.

He lists his place of work as "Auschwitz Concentration Camp."

There's a Joel Harley who joined the Young Nats this year, and who also went to the national conference in May. He's friends with several other Young Nats.

But when I contacted this Joel, he said the Facebook profile wasn't his.

The profile has now been deleted.

Kaz Ross: The difficulty with these kind of guys is they'll say, "It was just a joke. I was just pushing a meme. It was just for fun". But when you start to build up a profile of these people where there's lots of 14 88 jokes, Hitler's birthday, anti-immigration, anti-black, anti-Muslim, liking some pretty extreme and objectionable material. You realise that these people actually do have an ideological belief, it's not just meming and joking around.

Alex Mann: And remember Clifford Jennings? The guy who got elected to the NSW Young Nationals executive? He's there too but under the name See Gen.

In March last year, the group debated which non-white cultures they should be accepting of.

Clifford writes, "Nothing must be accepted."

Another user then laments, "Unless we genocide everyone that isn't 100% white there is no way of pure blood. I'm just saying..."

Clifford Jennings replies, "Compromise is also democratic and not what we are. We must inspire people with truth."

Clifford also answers a Facebook poll on the 12th March 2017. The question was "What is your main political opinion lads?" Clifford picks "Ethno-nationalism (race over all)" and "Fascism."

Elsewhere online, he writes, "all I care about is the fourteen words".

In far-right circles, "the fourteen words" is code for a phrase made famous by the founder of a US white supremacist terrorist organisation called The Order:

"We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children."

Clifford doesn't deny saying it but does say that he's been taken out of context and was -quote, "referring to ensuring Australia remains a prosperous and diverse society."

He denied any knowledge of its connection to The Order. The far-right activity goes well beyond the New Guard.

Thomas Brasher: Everything unnatural, everything subverted is being pushed except for us because we pose a real threat to the status quo it's not Antifa, they're the foot soldiers of the status quo.

Alex Mann: That's Young Nat Thomas Brasher speaking at a True Blue Crew rally in June this year.

Thomas Brasher: The reason also that I have the courage and the passion to come up here today, was due to the fact that I educated myself.

Alex Mann: Thomas Brasher's a law and economics student, who's still on his P's. On June 22 this year, he posted a video of himself boxing at the Lads Society.

In September, he posted on Instagram about having had "the honour of meeting Kevin MacDonald," a man described by a US Law Centre as "the neo-Nazi movement's favourite academic."

And there's Oscar Tuckfield, who was recently photographed campaigning for NSW Nationals MP Paul Toole.

Oscar also shares an ABN with three others. Another Young Nat, Michael Heaney, and two members of the Lads Society, one of whom posted a photo of himself to Facebook wearing a neo-Nazi t-shirt a few years ago.

This is the first time the breadth of the new members' far right connections has been disclosed publicly.

Kaz Ross: I guess what I'm worried about most with these groups - if the group is Reclaim Australia and they're against mosques and they're protesting on the street, you know what they stand for. If the person has a law degree or a politics degree, they're working as a staffer in somebody's politics office, but they actually have very strong neo-Nazi or fascist beliefs and then they've got a kind of an underground movement to influence politics to push it to the right, yeah, I am concerned about that because it's not upfront.

Clifford Jennings has since left the New Guard Facebook group, and many of the other members haven't been active in months.

Alex Mann: But as Dr Ross and I scroll down through the posts we come across a telling manifesto from June 2017.

Kaz Ross: This really sums up exactly what their aims are, what their objectives are. Short term, medium term and long term.

New Guard Facebook: Hey guys, I'll be making a video later today detailing some of the plans we have for this movement... ideas so far:

- Short term: University Clubs, meet ups and creating visual propaganda.

- Medium term: Setting up a headquarters, doing charity work, doing more political work.

- Long term: Setting up businesses and employing our own guys, buying houses and creating our own communities, and electing people in local state and federal parliament.

Alex Mann: Another member posts a comment: "one of the ways to realise our goals in our lifetime is taking over an already existing party from the inside without anyone being the wiser."

That comment's now been deleted.

Then, as I look back through Nicholas Walker's posts, I see one from the time of the Young Nationals state conference... It's a photo of a Young Nats voting card and the words "Time to make some changes boys."

Another friend comments underneath "Drain the swamp".

Kaz Ross: You know they've just really stepped it out step by step by step to where they want to get to and where they want to get to is actually influencing the political system in Australia.

Alex Mann: And this post has been liked by Clifford Jennings who is a current office holder of the Young Nationals. So do you think they're already doing this stuff, they're already having influence on politics?

Kaz Ross: Absolutely.

Alex Mann: And that's how I wound up here on a stakeout opposite the Lads Society headquarters in Sydney.

I've watched seven young men walk inside tonight.

Last time I was here, Clifford Jennings walked in when I first called him, he referred me to a Young Nationals party spokesperson.

Tonight, Thomas Brasher and Oscar Tuckfield are here. Now, I'm going in to see if they'll speak to me.

Behind a set of gates, there's a roller door open to about waist height.

I crouch down to speak through the gap.

The lights are on inside, and a group of guys are seated around a table.

Alex Mann: G'day. How you doing? Alex Mann here from the ABC, I'm just wondering if you guys are open for a chat? It's Alex Mann from the ABC.

Man: Get off my property mate.

Alex Mann: Are you sure?

That's the sound of a roller door slamming shut... all the way to the ground.

Deputy Prime Minister and Federal Leader of the National Party Michael McCormack was unavailable for an interview for this program.

In a statement sent to Background Briefing, he said that "individual memberships of the NSW Nationals are a matter for the party organisation."

Last week, after I sent questions about the online posts of some of the new Young Nats both to the individuals involved and to the National Party, Nicholas Walker was asked to resign his membership.

After resigning, he tells me he was experiencing mental health issues at the time he made the 'Heil Hitler' post and that he likes posting offensive things online.

Clifford Jennings sent me a written response in which he says he no longer defines himself as a fascist and says "if you must label me then I am a Dick Smith-style pragmatist."

He says he goes to the Lads Society "to buy health supplements."

Thomas Brasher and Oscar Tuckfield both ignored my subsequent calls and texts.

Michael Heaney and Joel Harley texted back "no comment".

As a result of this Background Briefing investigation, the National Party has sent show-cause notices to two more Young Nationals identified in this program.

When we contacted Nationals MP Paul Toole about the connections of the Young Nats who'd been helping him out, he responded:

"I understand [that] the NSW Nationals are taking decisive action on this matter and I welcome that.

The views expressed are disgusting and abhorrent to me. Extremism is not welcome in the NSW Nationals.

I will not accept any volunteers who hold such extremist views."

Credits:

Background Briefing's Sound Producer is Leila Shunnar.

Sound engineering by David Lawford and Jen Parsonnage.

Additional production by David Lewis.

Fact checking by Anne Worthington.

Supervising Producer is Ali Russell.

Our Executive Producer is Alice Brennan.

I'm Alex Mann.

