AUSTRALIA’S government plans legislation to ban swastikas and other Nazi symbols nationwide due to an increase in far-right activity, Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus said today.

While most Australian states already ban such Nazi symbols, the federal law would go further by also banning the trade in such material, Mr Dreyfus said.

“There’s been a rise in this kind of violent far-right activity. We think it’s time for there to be a federal law which I’ll be bringing to the Parliament next week,” Mr Dreyfus told Nine Network television.

“We’ve got responsibility for import and export. We want to see an end to trading in this kind of memorabilia or any items which bear those Nazi symbols,” Mr Dreyfus said.

“There’s no place in Australia for the spreading of hatred and violence.”

The law would include a penalty for people displaying Nazi symbols of up to a year in prison.

Displaying symbols for religious, educational or artistic purposes would be among a range of exclusions from the ban. 

Mr Dreyfus said the number of neonazis in the country was small, but the main domestic spy agency, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, had raised concerns about their increased activity in the past few years.