A One Nation policy officer in Queensland, John Drew, has defended the Hitler Youth and made racist remarks about Aboriginal people. Despite claims of a new vetting process, he continues to hold a party position.
Key points
John Drew is a policy officer for One Nation in Queensland.
He has made racist remarks about Aboriginal people on social media.
Drew defended the Hitler Youth organization.
One Nation claims to have a vetting process called Operation Obsidian.
Drew has a history with far-right groups like Australia First.
Mentioned in this story
One NationQueenslandBrisbaneAustralia FirstPatriotic Youth League
A man who has defended the Hitler Youth organisation and used offensive and racist language about Aboriginal people and migrants is working as a policy development officer for One Nation in Queensland.
Guardian Australia can reveal that John Drew, who claims he was kicked out of One Nation more than 20 years ago for being “too radical”, says he has been a party branch official in Brisbane since late last year. This is despite One Nation claiming it has introduced a sophisticated new vetting tool – dubbed Operation Obsidian – that it applies to any person taking up a party role.
On Monday Drew confirmed to Guardian Australia that he holds the role of “policy development officer” with the Ryan branch in Brisbane. He would not say whether he had been elected or appointed to the position.
Drew was previously the Queensland secretary for the far-right Australia First party and national coordinator for the Patriotic Youth League, which was active in the early 2000s and had links to a US neo-Nazi organisation.
His Facebook account shows that he has repeatedly used deeply offensive and racist language about Aboriginal people, calling them “rapacious bludgers and grifters”, “ghastly boongs” and “stone age people”.
In one post he said: “It has been estimated that at least fifty percent of aborigines are mentally ill.”
In another post about the campaign for an Indigenous voice to parliament, he called the Olympian Cathy Freeman an “aboriginal flog” and claimed that “country people have had enough of rapacious aborigines”.
A photo of Drew below the headline ‘The anti-immigrant activist’
A 2007 profile of John Drew in Zoo Weekly
Drew posted in 2022 that he was writing a film script based on historical events on North Stradbroke Island in which soldiers fought “the vile savages causing problems”.
Q&A
Who is John Drew and what is his role in One Nation?
John Drew is a policy development officer for One Nation in Brisbane, having previously been associated with far-right groups.
What racist comments did John Drew make about Aboriginal people?
John Drew referred to Aboriginal people using offensive terms like 'stone age people' and 'rapacious bludgers'.
What is Operation Obsidian in relation to One Nation?
Operation Obsidian is a vetting tool claimed by One Nation to screen individuals taking up party roles, despite Drew's controversial history.
What previous affiliations does John Drew have with extremist groups?
John Drew was the Queensland secretary for the Australia First party and a national coordinator for the Patriotic Youth League, linked to neo-Nazi organizations.
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“It will be an action movie which shows aborigines being shot and killed,” he wrote.
Dozens of other deeply offensive posts are found on Drew’s Facebook page. It claims he is a “radical activist with Pauline Hanson’s One Nation” and in March he said he was “proud to be a One Nation branch official”.
Last December he claimed his position was “the recruitment secretary of my local party branch”. He also attended a function linked to the Lilley branch with Senator Pauline Hanson in October.
Drew claims to have had a long association with One Nation, saying he has believed in Hanson and her policies since the 1990s. He also volunteered for the election campaign of her media adviser, Richard Henderson, who ran unsuccessfully for the seat of South Brisbane at the 2024 Queensland state election.
According to Drew, he handed out how-to-vote cards for Henderson in West End and in Highgate Hill at a booth “inundated with young idealists”.
Drew was advising on the party’s processing of membership applications on 3 June and gave an update on merchandise sales last week.
“Our membership processing staff at One Nation headquarters are very busy,” he said. “Your plastic membership card will eventually arrive in the mail so ensure that you enter correct address details when you join.”
In March and April he discussed the popularity of his branch, saying it had more than 200 members.
One Nation has claimed it is using technology to screen candidates and officials to avoid the controversies surrounding extreme candidates that have long plagued the party.
Guardian Australia revealed last month that the party had introduced a vetting tool for elected branch executive members called ONTRACE, while the party told Nine that it was deploying “secret methods” to undertake thorough character and background checks.
The party’s new general manager, Kelvin Morton, said Operation Obsidian would apply to “how we vet and assess candidates, employees, and anybody that takes up a role within One Nation”.
Hanson told Nine’s Inside Politics podcast this month that the party had shut down four branches amid concern that far-right members had infiltrated it.
“I’m being infiltrated by these extremists, so it’s all the time happening with One Nation, they set us up all the time, and I’ve really had enough of it,” she said.
But while Hanson distanced herself from the “ridiculous” views of white nationalists, Drew has made it clear that he believes the country should never have abandoned the “fabulous” White Australia policy.
In a 2023 post he said his holiday reading would be Keith Windschuttle’s White Australia Policy, quoting Billy Hughes as saying: “We have the opportunity here to create a great, white, southern nation.”
In December he said: “The fabulous White Australia Policy was foolishly abandoned in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Now we have failed multicultural government policies.”
Drew has also posted countless racist comments directed at ethnic minorities, calling the Labor MP Sally Sitou a “sad ethnic lady” who was seeking to justify mass migration, and labelling Senator Mehreen Faruqi a “foreign nutter”.
He repeated Hanson’s comment that Faruqi should “piss off back to Pakistan”, which was found to be in breach of the Racial Discrimination Act. Hanson is appealing against the finding.
“John Drew says that Faruqi can piss off to Pakistan where she actually belongs,” he said. “Sue me!”
Drew claimed that Australia was “being swamped” by Chinese people and “non assimilating migrants”, and referred to Muslims as “Islamic scum”. He has also posted about “ethnics defrauding the taxpayer” through the national disability insurance scheme and called for “Indians to go back to India”.
A post about One Nation membership with an article headlined ‘One Nation surges ahead’
One of Drew’s Facebook posts
In one post he suggested a group of Sikhs were “pongy”, while on a Nigel Farage video he labelled Afghan migrants “nonassimilating goat herders”.
“Time for mass deportations,” he wrote in April.
In posts last year about cricket, Drew called Australia’s victory evidence of white supremacy.
“When a white nation of 26 million people can beat a black nation of 1.1 billion look no further for proof of white supremacy,” one post said. In another, which referred to the cricket World Cup, he said: “Indian people must accept white supremacy.”
He has also posted content that suggests he is enamoured with far-right parties in Europe, with particular praise reserved for Alternative for Germany, which has campaigned for a return to predominantly blood-based citizenship rights.
He praised Berlin’s “fabulous Poliziei” in a post in May showing police assaulting protesters at a pro-Palestinian rally, and on another post appeared to defend the Hitler Youth.
“By the way the Hitler Youth mainly encouraged young Germans to lead a healthier lifestyle by stressing outdoor activities,” Drew wrote while commenting on a post about Farage in October.
The original post was by the UK Reform politician Darren Grimes, who was commenting on remarks made by the UK deputy prime minister, David Lammy, who accused Farage, the Reform leader, of having “flirted with the Hitler Youth”.
According to Australian Electoral Commission records, Drew ran for One Nation for the seat of Ryan in 2001 but claimed in a 2007 Zoo Weekly article that profiled “Nazis in Australia” that he had been dumped for being too radical.
“One Nation dumped me because of my radical ideas,” he said. “They wouldn’t endorse me for a seat, so I joined the more radical Australia First.”
In the article, Drew was described as an “extremist” and said he “most definitely” believed that the white supremacy movement was growing in Australia.
“It’s also causing a thing called ‘white flight’, where white people actually leave ethnic-dominated areas to move to places like Brisbane where they [immigrants] are not in such large numbers,” he said.
Drew’s Facebook page repeats the notion of “white flight” in numerous posts, saying people were moving to Queensland to escape “local ethnic encroachment”.
He was also reportedly the Queensland organiser for the Patriotic Youth League, the white nationalist youth organisation affiliated with Australia First.
After confirming his One Nation role to the Guardian, Drew hung up and would not answer any further questions. In a text message, he said: “Go and annoy someone else. Better things to do” and, “Better still find a sensible job.” When asked if his role was elected or appointed, he said “none of your business so bugger off”.
