About NEST
We are a diverse group of local residents united by several core beliefs:
- Nazism, fascism, and other forms of hate-based authoritarianism have no place in our community.
- All people should feel safe, welcome, and included here.
- We do not need to agree on everything. We may come from different backgrounds, generations, belief systems, and political perspectives, but we share a commitment to democracy, individual rights, human dignity, and the freedom of all people to live without intimidation, discrimination, or political violence – including people from migrant and Indigenous communities.
Together, we stand for a Shire where fascism finds no acceptance, no safe haven, and no future.
As a community, we were shocked and dismayed to recently discover that Thomas Sewell, one of Australia’s most prominent Neo-Nazis, is living in a rented $2.5m property in Hurstbridge — and continues to post hateful content from this location.
Find out more about Thomas and his plans for HurstbridgeOur colours and logo
The use of red, black and white is intentional. Red and black aren’t borrowed from the Nazis – the colour scheme comes from older traditions, when red meant socialism and the workers’ movement, and black represented anarchism.
If anything, the borrowing of colour ran the other way: Hitler deliberately adopted red, the colour of socialism, to court the working class. Wearing them puts us in a long line of people who’ve stood against fascism.
There’s a second colour here too: a warm wattle gold. Every spring, golden wattle bursts into bloom across Hurstbridge and the Shire – so brightly that we hold a Wattle Festival each year to celebrate it. We chose it deliberately. Where red names the threat we’re facing, gold is the colour we own: the warmth and the stubbornness of this place.
Our logo depicts three white-winged choughs surrounding and protecting a nest. These birds are everywhere in the Nillumbik bush, but our real connection to them is how they live. Choughs can’t raise a family alone. A breeding pair needs helpers, so they live in tight family groups and share the work — feeding the chicks, raising the young together.
When a threat appears, the whole group forms a united defensive front, using coordinated wing-waving displays and alarm calls to drive off intruders. That’s why they’re on our logo: a community that looks after its own, and defends it together.