Flag Waving and General Idiocy at the 'Rise Up Australia' Campaign Launch

Rise Up Australia is a minor party raging against multiculturalism, political correctness, and Islam. Formed in 2011, the fringe group was a vehicle for the failed run at the Senate of Pentecostal preacher Danny Nalliah, whose statements about the gay community and Islam range from controversial to outrageous.

Nalliah has described the former Greens leader Bob Brown as an "openly practicing homosexual." He also described former Prime Minister Julia Gillard as "living in sin" with her partner.

You get the point. What's new is that Nalliah's party is having another run at power and they claim a few seats are within their reach. The party's national campaign launch happened on Monday at the Melbourne's Seasons Botanic Gardens Hotel, and I went along to understand what drives the group.

Populism is on the ascent globally, from Donald Trump to the assortment of growing far-right and nationalist parties across Europe. It was time to get close to this strange fire.

When I arrive, a media representative takes my name invites me to pick a table. What I first notice is that Rise Up Australia really loves Australian flags. The flag is everywhere. From the flag-themed outfits worn by Senate candidate for Victoria Rosalie Crestani, and New South Wales Senate hopeful Brian Tucker, to the miniature flags laid out on every table for the attendees.

But if a prop ties the event together even more than the flag, it's unabashed national pride. After a rendition of the Lord's Prayer, Nalliah takes the podium and twice bursts into a chant of "Aussie, Aussie, Aussie!" The room replies with a raucous "oi, oi, oi!" from 100 or so enthusiastic supporters. He also twice leads the room into a particularly earnest delivery of the national anthem. I watch everyone singing around me in awe, noticing how they hold their miniature flags aloft and wave them about. There is genuine excitement in the air.

The next theme to the afternoon is a classic. Nalliah and his followers love Australia, but they're convinced it's under threat.

For over two hours, speakers rail against various perceived evils, from large corporations skimping on taxes and measures to prevent climate change, to foreign land ownership, drugs, and alcohol. Following Nalliah are 20–30 minute speeches by Victoria president Yvonne Gentle, lower house candidate for Hotham, Victoria Peter Vassiliou, and again, Rosalie Crestani.

Looming above it all, though, is the specter of Islam, to which Nalliah devotes most of his opening speech, touching on the ISIS-inspired massacre in Orlando and Sharia courts in Australia.

"I don't shadowbox, I don't sidetrack. I'll tell you what: I don't like Islam," Nalliah tells his supporters. "Because it's not a religion. It's a whole system, it's an ideology."

Rise Up Australia, which champions a "multi-ethnic nation with one culture," strenuously denies that it's racist. Nalliah, who in 2004 was convicted of vilifying Muslims after a complaint by the Islamic Council of Victoria but later cleared on appeal, is himself an immigrant from Sri Lanka. And he evidentially gets a kick out of confounding critics as a "black fellow from Sri Lanka" who hates political correctness and argues immigrants should adapt to Australia and not the opposite.

When I scan the room, I see a crowd that, while mostly middle-aged and older, seems about as racially diverse as a typical Melbourne street. They are ecstatic to hear the speakers, punctuating the speeches with "that's right!" and "yes!"

"You have the right to stand on the rooftop and shout out, 'This is Australia. You come here, you integrate, you assimilate. If you think where you come from is better than where you are coming into, then pack your bags and go back to where you come from,'" says Nalliah.

The crowd couldn't agree more.

What I find most telling is the way anti-Islam rhetoric is only the tip of a much broader, messier pile of fears and resentments. "The current system is taking us down a Marxist road," explains Ron McMillan, a crane operator I talk to after the speeches.

He explains that he's concerned with what he sees as the establishment's constant barrage of attacks on capitalism, the church, and family. But political correctness—he calls it a "tool Marxists use to silence us"—prevents any discussion on this.

"We've got to change what's happening politically," he says.

Changing anything politically means winning seats on July 2. But with no current representation across the country, and a crowded field of minor parties to compete with, Rise Up Australia might have their work cut out for them. Despite this, Nalliah claims there are three Senate seats within the party's reach, describing himself as "confident" of a Senate seat in Victoria.

Whether or not Nalliah finds electoral success, I can't deny that he's found a segment of Australians who share his beliefs. Like Trump, he opens his mouth and lets out whatever is in his head, which is apparently the same set of solutions that are in a lot of heads. He validates fear and paranoia, while urging blame instead of encouraging consideration. And some Australians, like many others around the world, find that sort of electioneering very exciting.

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