The publication earlier this week of photographs of Auckland Grammar schoolboys bowing before a swastika flag led to the boys involved having to make an apology to the Auckland War Memorial Museum and WWII veterans.

One wonders if right-wing extremists New Zealand National Front will be making similar apologies? Since 2004 the group has been holding its’ annual rally on or near the Cenotaph in Wellington.

Every year members of the group have sported swastika tattoos, nazi insignia on clothing and even performed nazi salutes. Unlike the aforementioned schoolboys, such antics are more likely a sign of their political leanings rather than a misguided “joke”.

Former NF Secretary Kerry Bolton claimed in the Dominion Post on 6 July 2009 that he had left the NF in 2004 due to the “neo-Nazi, racist element”. Whilst he was NF Secretary, he always denied members of the NF held such views. Bolton still regularly attends the annual NF rally.

National Front members at 2008 AGM Wellington,
Top 10 Hutt Park Holiday Park www.huttpark.co.nz

partying down, nazi style, at the 2008 NF AGM

Here’s a photo of Bolton at the NF’s Annual General Meeting, held in Lower Hutt immediately after their 2008 rally.

Kyle Chapman, Jim Saleam and Kerry Bolton at the NZ National
Front Annual General Meeting, 2008

Kerry Bolton is a 30+ year veteran of extremist groups such as Nationalist Workers Party, National Front and Fascist Union. He is author of the Holocaust-denial booklet “The Holocaust Myth” and a number of his short articles and letters have been published on the website of the Holocaust-denial group The Adelaide Institute.

Will they apologise?

Don’t hold your breath!