A charity holding more than $16 million in cash and assets gave $2,000 to an online outlet that has published calls for the “accelerated removal of non-citizens.” The Australian English-Speaking Union has now launched an internal investigation into its Victorian branch.
The probe began after the ABC alerted the organisation to the grant to The National Observer, which has been described as white nationalist. The ABC’s investigation also found ties between ESU Victoria and the far-right British Australian Community. The ABC said it wasn’t suggesting that all ESU Victoria members share or support white nationalist views.
What The Money Funded
ESU Victoria said the grant application cited The National Observer’s independent podcasts promoting Australian culture, heritage and language. The publication sought the money for lapel microphones and website development.
Its content tells a different story. In an anonymous article titled “Australian Remigration — What it would look like, and how it could be achieved tomorrow,” The National Observer called for the “accelerated removal of non-citizens” and incentives for the permanent “departure” of some Australians with dual citizenship. Another recent piece asked: “Are White Australians being replaced? The media says it's a conspiracy theory, the data says otherwise.”
The outlet also publishes a weekly podcast hosted by its founder, who uses the name “John Lawson.” In November 2025, Lawson interviewed Eric Orwoll, founder of the US “whites only” enclave Return to the Land, about how its ideas could apply in Australia. Australian white nationalists have appeared on the show, where they aired racist and antisemitic views. During an episode with a campaigner for Germany’s Alternative for Germany, an Australian host said the publication aimed to “try and build a young elite who have these right-wing ideas.”
ESU Victoria didn’t back away. “While the content of the National Observer's podcasts are that organization's responsibility, we support the common law freedoms available to all Australians, including freedom of expression,” the branch said.
Shared Address, Shared People
Company documents show the British Australian Community and ESU Victoria share a building in Ascot Vale, in Melbourne’s inner north-west. ESU Victoria president Robert Furlan previously served as a BAC secretary. A post in a BAC social media group said all BAC members had automatically been associate members of ESU Victoria since 2016.
ESU Victoria says the BAC was historically a corporate member, but the corporate membership and associated benefits ceased to operate in 2016. The branch told the ABC it has no current financial relationship with the BAC. It has, however, previously funded a BAC campaign opposing the renaming of places and monuments to recognise Indigenous heritage, and sponsored the BAC’s annual “Britfest” event.
The BAC says it exists to “promote and defend the interests of Anglo-Celtic Australians.” It has advocated remigration, defined in the report as deportation of people of non-European heritage. In a 2024 post on X, it said Anglo-Celtic Australians were “under siege” from the “threat” of “mass indiscriminate immigration.” A 2024 press release urged then-opposition leader Peter Dutton to “initiate the orderly remigration of recent arrivals wishing to return to their homelands,” and proposed “a Department of Emigration responsible for managing the diplomatic and logistical dimensions of mass negative migration.”
Company records identify Frank Salter as the BAC’s current secretary. Dr Salter co-founded the Australian National Alliance in the 1970s, an anti-immigration group that contemporary reports described as focused on recruiting young people. In 2023, ESU Victoria announced a grant to Dr Salter for a publication titled “Collected essays on the national question.” He hasn’t responded to questions.
Calls For Scrutiny
The global English-Speaking Union operates across 50 countries. British journalist Sir Evelyn Wrench founded it more than 100 years ago, and he “envisioned a world where shared language could bridge cultural divides and foster peace,” according to the organisation. ESU Victoria runs rhyming poetry competitions and helps schoolchildren practise public speaking.
ESU Australia says it takes the matter seriously. A spokesperson said: “AESU is a non-partisan, non-political organisation. We do not engage in political advocacy, nor do we support donations to political organisations or to any organisation that does not uphold the ESU's purpose and mission.”
Extremism researcher Josh Roose, from Deakin University, said the branch appeared to share some “traditionalist pseudo-intellectual elements” of the far right. ESU Victoria’s website defines English-speaking people as “people of the British Isles and their descendants.” Roose said the grant risked crossing into funding political activism. “When you're platforming white nationalists ... there's a very, very thin line here as to what's acceptable and it certainly warrants further investigation,” he said.
He called on the Australian government to conduct a thorough review of the branch’s stated aims, mission and activities. “Charities are there to serve the greater good,” he said. “When a charity is being used and cloaked effectively in a certain language to allow it to use tax breaks ... at times to achieve a political purpose, then it's moved well beyond its remit.”
Why This Matters: Charitable status brings tax breaks, and those breaks amount to a public subsidy. When a charity holding more than $16 million funds an outlet that calls for the removal of non-citizens and floats incentives for some Australians to leave the country, the question isn’t just about one grant. It’s whether the public can trust that tax-advantaged money serves the “greater good” Roose describes. Communities targeted by remigration rhetoric have a direct stake in the answer. Schoolchildren whose poetry competitions and public-speaking lessons carry the same organisation’s name do, too. An internal investigation is a start, but Roose’s call for a government review raises a harder question: whether oversight of charities is strong enough to catch this kind of drift before a journalist does.