Three people wearing Ku Klux Klan-style white hoods pulled up in a car and shouted racist abuse at tent embassy activists in Canberra two days after the prime minister was evacuated from a nearby awards ceremony.
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Unions ACT leader Kim Sattler says she was told about the incident by a federal government bureaucrat after going public about hate mail she had received from white supremacist groups following her reported involvement in the Australia Day protest.
‘‘Three people pulled up in a car with white hoods and screamed out racist abuse to the people at the embassy after the Australia Day protest,’’ Ms Sattler said Sunday.
The 12 pages of newspaper articles and typed messages of threatening hate mail she had received, overlaid with handwritten notes, dictated that anyone who was not from a white Anglo-Saxon background did not deserve to live in Australia.
‘‘They are completely crazed fanatics,’’ Ms Sattler said of the authors.
The letters had all been placed in her letterbox, and were postmarked from Adelaide. However, Ms Sattler understands they could have originated from elsewhere.
She has referred the matter to the Australian Federal Police.
Ms Sattler made headlines when she was named as the person who relayed a message to tent embassy activists on January 26 that Opposition Leader Tony Abbott had said it was time for indigenous protesters to ‘‘move on’’ from the tent embassy, and that he was at a nearby restaurant.
The unrest that followed led to Prime Minister Julia Gillard, who was at an awards ceremony at the same restaurant, along with Mr Abbott, being evacuated by police in dramatic scenes that were broadcast worldwide.
Ms Sattler understands ACT police have been informed of the January 28 incident involving the hooded people.
