From the Courier Mail:

Few anniversary problems
Edith Bevin
December 10, 2006

IT could have been a powder keg – white supremacists, young Middle Eastern men, bikini-clad girls and traditionalist Muslim woman all converging on the site of last year’s Cronulla riots.

A year ago yesterday the same ingredients sparked ugly incidents as public hatred turned a beach-side suburb into a war zone.

But the anniversary of the Cronulla race riots passed without incident – thanks in part to a massive land, sea and air police presence.

Despite the influx of radically opposed groups who swarmed to the suburbs to mark the anniversary, the opposing groups mixed largely without incident.

Instead of the feared return to the war zone of last year, the influence of people and warm weather created a carnival-like atmosphere at the beach.

White supremacists had predicted tens of thousands would return in an aggressive display of nationalism.

But in reality only about 10 core members of the pro-white Australia group Australia First showed up clad in Australian and Southern Cross flags and T-shirts.

They handed out leaflets for Independent candidate for Cronulla John Moffat who promises in his election platform to “sack the multiculturalist Commissioner of Police for the biased investigation of participants in th Civil Uprising of dEcember 11″.

Aenarion Smith, wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with an Australian flag and reading: “Dinki Di Aussie Patriot - do have a problem with that?”, was one of those leafleting for Moffat.

He denied he was there to incite a reaction.

“The t-shirt sorts poeple out - people who walk past it are fine, those that stop and want to make an issue of it are usually the people we don’t want here,” he said.

The only race clash yesterday came between Australia First’s Dr Jim Saleam and Mat Henderson-Hau of the anti-racist Fight Dem Back group.

The two had a firey exchange, with Saleam accusing Henderson-Hau of lying and engaging in unspecified criminal acts.

Mr Henderson-Hau later laughed it off, saying it was “fun” winding Australia First members up but said he wasn’t really there to cause any trouble.

“I came down to have a swim and to see how many of them turned up and who they were,” he said.

“They were saying they would have tens of thousands down here again and by 8pm they would have overthrown Macquarie St.

“Looking around I’m not seeing that, are you?”

Police deputy commissioner Andrew Scipione said he was “very happy” with crowd behaviour at beaches across southern Sydney.

“I want to thank everyone for being sensible. It’s been a very good day and we’re looking forward to a safe summer,” he said.

“We were not expecting problems. However, the community has an expectation that police will be there in large numbers to ensure that people can go about their business.

“I’ve been having discussions with the community in recent weeks, indeed in the past year, and it’s clear the people of Cronulla want to get on with their lives - they want to go back and enjoy the suburb they cherish and love so much. And that is the same feeling in the South-West in the Muslim community - they don’t want to go back to where they were last December.”

Operation Beach Safe began on October 15 and will run through to the end of March.