A federal politician has appeared on an American alt-right podcast banned by Twitter for violent rhetoric, urging "real" Australians to "fight back" by descending on Canberra this weekend.
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Liberal senator Alex Antic was interviewed by controversial former Trump strategist Steve Bannon on Thursday, ahead of a major anti-vaccine mandate protest planned in the capital this Saturday.
Mr Bannon's podcast - The War Room - was permanently suspended on Twitter last year, after he called for the beheading of American bureaucrats over COVID-19 restrictions.
Another protest outside Parliament House, coinciding with the return of politicians on Tuesday, failed to draw the expected numbers.
Mr Antic, who threatened to withhold his vote over vaccine mandates in November, conceded "we're not seeing tectonic shifts" in Australia, where anti-vaccine sentiment remains a small minority.
But The Canberra Times witnessed a large number of vehicles enter the group's Exhibition Park campsite on Thursday evening. Messages on the group's Telegram channel appear to show a number of interstate travellers flocking to the capital.
"I'm seeing the early stages and the rumblings of it. What we're going to see on Saturday, I think, are huge waves of people descending here on Canberra," Mr Antic said.
Mr Antic falsely claimed the media was not covering the protests, which have been reported on by television, radio and newspaper outlets across the country.
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He suggested Australians' "she'll be right" attitude predisposed them to comply to COVID-19 restrictions.
"Australia was settled as a penal colony, and perhaps always that respect for authority has always been in our DNA. I think we're seeing the fruits of that now," he said.
"We've given away far too much of our liberty in the last two years, and Australians now need to start fighting back to get it back ... it's great to see the real Australia on the streets."
Mr Bannon ran former US President Donald Trump's 2016 campaign and served as his chief strategist until 2017.
His podcast was banned on Twitter in November after calling for Mr Trump to go a "step further" than firing US chief medical advisor Anthony Fauci and FBI director Christopher Wray.
"I'd put the heads on pikes. I'd put them at the two corners of the White House as a warning to federal bureaucrats: you either get with the program or you're gone, [it's] time to stop playing games," he said.
YouTube removed the episode in question, but continues to air Mr Bannon's podcast.
A spokesperson for Mr Bannon later claimed the comments were metaphorical.
Mr Antic is one of a number of anti-vaccine mandate politicians - including Nationals MP George Christensen and United Australia Party leader Craig Kelly - who have cultivated online audiences internationally by criticising COVID-19 restrictions in Australia.
Australia has become a particular fixation in the US, where anti-vaccine protesters chanted "save Australia" in rallies last year.
Mr Antic did not respond to The Canberra Times' requests for comment.