National Action (Australia)

Not to be confused with National Action (UK).

National Action
The Eureka flag, originally raised in the Eureka Rebellion and later adopted by the group.[1]
Founders	Jim Saleam David Greason
Leader	Jim Saleam
Foundation	1982
Dissolved	1991
Country	Australia
Headquarters	Tempe, New South Wales
Newspaper	Advance (1983–1989)[2]
Ideology	Australian nationalism[3][4] White nationalism[5] Anti-multiculturalism Anti-immigration[6]
Political position	Right-wing[7][8] to far-right[5]
Size	~500 (1989)[9]

National Action was a militant Australian white nationalist group founded in 1982 by Jim Saleam, a far-right activist, and David Greason.^[10][11] Saleam had been a member of the short-lived National Socialist Party of Australia as a teenager during the 1970s.^[12]

Jim Saleam's criminal convictions include property offenses and fraud in 1984 and being an accessory before the fact in regard to organising a shotgun attack in 1989 on African National Congress representative Eddie Funde.^[5] Saleam served jail terms for both crimes.^[11] He pleaded not guilty to both charges, claiming that he was set up by police.^[5][11]

The group was disbanded following the murder of a member, Wayne "Bovver" Smith, in the group's headquarters at Tempe.^[11] Saleam later became the New South Wales chairman of the Australia First Party,^[11] and stood as its endorsed candidate several times.

The National Action co-founder David Greason's book, I was a Teenage Fascist, tells of Greason's own time within the Australian fascist movement and the events behind the founding of National Action.^[13]

See also

• Australians Against Further Immigration
• Far-right politics in Australia
• Reclaim Australia
• True Blue Crew
• United Patriots Front

References

1. "Eureka: a short war that's long on history". The Age. Nine Entertainment. 3 November 2004. Retrieved 17 May 2024.
2. Saleam 1999, p. 474.
3. Whitford 2013, p. 40-41.
4. "Fitzgerald Immigration Enquiry A Fraud". White Australia News. No. 12. National Action. 1988. p. 2.
5. West, Andrew (29 February 2004). "White separatist takes on Marrickville". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 4 February 2013.
6. Whitford 2013, p. 42.
7. Whitford 2013, p. 43.
8. "Item HT 8520". Museums Victoria Collections. Melbourne: Museums Victoria. Retrieved 17 May 2024. National Action, a right-wing organization that promoted, amongst other things, a return to a White Australia policy, and was particularly against immigration from Asia.
9. Saleam 1999, p. 190.
10. Greason 1994, p. 276.
11. West, Andrew (29 February 2004). "No Apology For White Australia Policy". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 4 February 2013.
12. Greason 1994, p. 283-284.
13. Greason 1994, p. 5.

Bibliography

• Whitford, Troy (2013). "Combating Political Police: An Overview of National Action's Counterintelligence Program 1982–1990" (PDF). Salus Journal. 2 (1).
• Saleam, James (1999). The Other Radicalism: An Inquiry Into Contemporary Australian Extreme Right Ideology, Politics And Organization 1975–1995 (PDF) (Thesis). Sydney, Australia: Fisher Library, University of Sydney.
• Greason, David (1994). I was a Teenage Fascist. Carlton: McPhee Gribble. ISBN 9780869142851.