The Anti-Defamation Commission has called for the neo-Nazi Thomas Sewell to be jailed, after he and three associates pleaded guilty to violent disorder over the 2025 attack on Camp Sovereignty, an Aboriginal burial and protest site in Melbourne.

“Once again the lesson is written in blood: where neo-Nazis gather, violence follows,” said the commission’s chairman, Dr Dvir Abramovich. “It always has. It always will.”

Dr Abramovich urged the court to use the full weight of the law. “The law allows up to ten years’ jail for violent disorder. Use it,” he said. “A fine, a bond or a community order will be read in every neo-Nazi chat room in this country as an invitation to do it again.”

He pointed to Sewell’s record. “This is Sewell’s second guilty plea to violent disorder. Hikers in the Cathedral Range. Now Camp Sovereignty,” he said. “Every time this movement steps out of the shadows, someone ends up hurt. And every time we are told they are a fringe, a handful of losers in black shirts. Tell that to the people they injured.”

They changed their name to White Australia. They did not change their fists.Dr Dvir Abramovich, ADC Chairman

Sewell, 33, Nathan Bull, Jake Crokett and Michael Saarinen pleaded guilty in the County Court of Victoria on Wednesday, each telling the court they contested the prosecution’s version of events. The men were allegedly part of a group that stormed the camp, which holds the remains of 38 Aboriginal people, after an anti-immigration rally on 31 August 2025. Five people were injured, according to the ABC. The four men return to court on 9 November.

Dr Abramovich closed with a warning to the movement Sewell led, whose successor, White Australia, the federal government listed as a prohibited hate group in May. “They changed their name to White Australia. They did not change their fists,” he said. “Jail them, and send the only message they will ever understand: bring Hitler’s violence to our streets, and you lose your freedom.”