Police are preparing for potential violence as several groups plan to shut down streets in protests across Australia on Saturday.
National rallies will be staged under the Australia Unites banner, made up of several splinter groups.
Organisers said the turnout would highlight Australians’ displeasure over worsening cost-of-living pressures, declining health outcomes, rising violence, financial strain and environmental policies that serve corporations.
Their website says the march is against “government corruption” and lists disparate concerns including the social media ban, the implementation of a digital ID, “land grabs and over-regulation” of farmers, the WHO pandemic treaty and a call for immigration reform.
Indigenous and Palestinian activist groups have planned a separate National Day of Action against racism and fascism, in many of the same cities, which they say is in response to neo-Nazis allegedly raiding an Indigenous camp, Camp Sovereignty, in Melbourne on 31 August.
“This attack was not just on a camp – it was an attack on Aboriginal sovereignty, on the fight for justice, and on every community that stands against racism and fascism in this country,” said the organisers.
Organisers of both rallies say they will be peaceful.
The Uniting Australians rally has said on its website that “Neo-Nazis are not welcome – no racism or any acts of hate or violence will be tolerated in any capacity.”
However, police in Victoria anticipate troublemakers among far-left and far-right groups may use the protests as an excuse to pick a fight.
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Violent brawls broke out between anti-immigration protesters and anti-fascism groups at protests in August in Melbourne, which led to police deploying pepper spray to separate demonstrators.
A group of men dressed in black had clashed with people at Camp Sovereignty in King’s Domain on 31 August, after the anti-immigration March for Australia rally in the city.
The camp is a burial site with the remains of Indigenous people from 38 clans. It was first created in 2006 to coincide with the Commonwealth Games and re-established in 2024.
Ten men, some with links to neo-Nazi groups, have been arrested and charged in relation to the alleged assaults and affray.
Victoria police said among the four groups set to turn out, those with far-right and extreme ideologies, as well as far-left and opposing views, would seek conflict and confront each other.
They could not discount the chance neo-Nazis would again take to the streets while a leader in the group remains behind bars.
The Victorian attorney general, Sonya Kilkenny, said the government supported peaceful protest but rebuked any protesters who planned to engage in harm and violence.
“Do not ever use the cloak of protest to go out there and cause crime,” she said.
“There is no place for protests that spread harm, that spread hate, that spread fear and violence, and there is certainly no place in Victoria for neo-Nazis.”
Rallies will also occur in Sydney, Hobart, Canberra and Brisbane but their state police forces have not warned of similar clashes.
Officers deployed in Melbourne will have extra powers to search people for weapons and can direct people to remove face coverings.
Mary-Joan Liddicoat and Michael Simms, two of the organisers of the Australia Unites rally, said they expected between 5,000 and 20,000 people to attend in Sydney and that the route had been coordinated by police so as not to cross paths with the Indigenous march.
Liddicoat and Simms said they had also spoken with organisers of the Sydney Indigenous march to make clear their peaceful intentions.
Organisers of the Sydney Indigenous march said they had concerns about a counter-protest being organised in Hyde Park. Liddicoat and Simms said they had also heard of this planned this counter-protest, but it was being organised by another group, unaffiliated with them.