Ku Klux Klan logo used on party website

The Australia First Party has defended its sale of merchandise featuring Ku Klux Klan symbols and its association with a group headed by an American neo-Nazi leader facing child pornography charges.

The Australian/February 4, 2007
By Greg Roberts

The AFP is supporting a campaign by independent candidate and party member John Moffat in the southern Sydney seat of Cronulla in next month's NSW election.

The AFP website shows the party is selling T-shirts displaying the Celtic Cross with the words, "Our Race Is Our Nation".

The cross and the slogan have long been identified with the Ku Klux Klan.

Mr Moffat has based his campaign for the election on what he describes as a "civil uprising of the Australian people" - the December 2005 riots at Cronulla.

Anti-racism campaigner Cam Smith said Mr Moffat should disassociate himself and the AFP from the KKK.

"The use of this slogan and symbol makes it clear the first loyalty of these people is to their race, not to Australia," Mr Smith said.

But Mr Moffat yesterday said he was not concerned about the association of the slogan and symbol with the KKK. "A lot of people are using that slogan these days," Mr Moffat said. "It represents what we stand for."

The Australian reported last month that Mr Moffat had posted messages attacking Muslims on the extremist right-wing National Vanguard website.

National Vanguard leader Kevin Strom has appeared before a court in West Virginia on child pornography and witness tampering charges.