Lawyers for the White Australia party, a far-right political group previously known as the National Socialist Network (NSN), have challenged Australia's new anti-hate laws in the High Court. They argue that the laws, introduced after the Bondi terror attack, are overly broad and "authoritarian in nature," as they rely on the opinion of a politician rather than a judicial review. The group was declared an illegal hate organization in May by the Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), which recommended the move to Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke. This designation makes it a crime to support, fund, train, recruit, or join the group, with potential prison sentences of up to 15 years. The party is challenging the ban in a two-day High Court hearing. Its legal team argues that the law violates the implied freedom of political communication and that allowing a minister to decide on banning groups undermines the separation of powers. They also cited a landmark 1951 High Court ruling that overturned a ban on the Communist Party of Australia, suggesting the government does not have the legal authority to ban political parties. The lawyers argue that the current law is too broad and could be used to ban any political group whose members have committed hate crimes, even if the group itself has not. In court, barristers Peter King and Shahed Sharify described the ban as using a "sledgehammer on a nut," emphasizing that the law is flawed. They argued that the part of the criminal code allowing the federal police minister to recommend a group be listed as a prohibited hate group is invalid. Sharify claimed the law's reliance on a politician’s opinion, without judicial oversight, is "authoritarian in nature." He suggested that judicial review would be more appropriate than allowing a minister to make such a critical decision based on a brief summary of the case. The Australian government is expected to defend the anti-hate laws by arguing that the White Australia party is not a legitimate political party but an extension of the neo-Nazi group White Australia, which is a rebranded version of the NSN. The government stated in written submissions that forming a political party was a deliberate strategy to shield members from legal consequences for racist and anti-Semitic speech. Meanwhile, members of the White Australia party, including its leader Tom Sewell, attended the court hearings. Sewell, 33, was recently given a community corrections order for using offensive racial slurs during a public stunt near a Chinese consulate, where he was found to have imitated "Nazi thugs of 1930s Berlin."