Christian group linked to KKK

The Age/July 21, 1999
By Greg Roberts

Brisbane -- Controversy has erupted over the revelation that the mayor of the NSW tourist city of Coffs Harbor, and one of its councillors, head a group whose parent body is linked to white supremacist and anti-Semitic organisations such as the Ku Klux Klan.

"Nations for the last 1000 years have been trying to get rid of the Jews and Hitler was trying to get rid of them for the same things,'' Councillor Bob Burton, told The Age.

Cr Burton and the Mayor, Cr John Smith, organise weekly meetings of a Coffs Harbor chapter of the Christian Identity movement.

Christian Identity features on the Internet websites of the KKK, and Christian Identity members in the United States have been responsible for violent attacks on racial minorities.

Both councillors denied that their group was extremist and said it did not condone violence, but Cr Smith would not be drawn on whether he disagreed with the KKK's racist agenda.

Cr Smith and Cr Burton are also supporters of One Nation, appearing with Mrs Pauline Hanson at a party fund-raising function in Coffs Harbor earlier this year.

The Christian Identity movement maintains that Jews are the descendants of a sexual union between Eve and Satan and that blacks and other non-whites are "mud people'' who have no souls.

Cr Smith said Christian Identity was "a servant group that can help all races''. He said he did not believe six million Jews were murdered during World War II. "I don't think there were that many of them around.''

Cr Burton said the "dark and Mongoloid'' races had "not been picked out to be the servants of God to bring proper government to the world'' and Jews were "not a productive race ... they are a race of money-lenders''.

Another councillor, Alf Williams, said he was embarrassed by his fellow councillors' views.