Residents on the Gold Coast are furious after a group of neo-Nazi white supremacists were allowed to hold a gathering on the Queensland tourist strip over the weekend.
Gold Coast Mayor Ron Clarke condemned the gathering, organised by a group calling themselves the Southern Cross Hammerskins, but said he was powerless to stop it.
The skinheads organised the gathering alongside the international hate groups Blood and Honour and Crew 38 but very little else was known about it.
Anyone who was interested in going was merely told to email an organiser named Tattooed Aryan.
That person would then arrange to pick them up and take them to a secret location.
Gold Coast police monitored the weekend event and say it passed without incident but they wouldn't be interviewed about it and they would not say exactly where it took place.
They also would not comment on how many people turned up.
Councillor Clarke says while he was absolutely opposed to it happening, there was nothing he could do to stop it because it was held on private property.
"You can't account for people's political leanings, tastes, or stupidity, can you?" he said.
The gathering started about 7:00pm on Friday when a group of about 30 skinheads turned up at a suburban restaurant in Ashmore on the Gold Coast.
Some of the heavily tattooed and shaven-headed men displayed swastikas. Others were wearing t-shirts with the slogan "Blood and Honour".
Blood and Honour is a global skinhead network which was banned in Germany in 2000 for spreading Nazi messages.
Sociologist Alec Pemberton from the University of Sydney says Australians should be worried about the group's activities here.
"These are white supremacists and they've actually been engaged in other countries in real acts of terror," he said.
"[Oklahoma bomber] Timothy McVeigh and people like that, they're along those lines.
"My point would always be, you are better off knowing about them, knowing where they are, what's going on, than having them undercover and underground."
The so-called Hammered Music Festival was promoted as the first event of its kind on the Gold Coast in fliers and over the internet.
Promoters touted it as a weekend of "sun, surf and racialist musical mayhem".
"These events aren't just about music - they're about networking and meeting new comrades - so we look forward to seeing ya [sic] and hopefully many other good white folk there," one promoter said.
The ABC tried to contact a number of members of the skinhead groups who organised the event, but all requests were ignored.
However Blood and Honour's online radio stream reveals that members often get together "to build a strong, white community".
Queensland Deputy Premier Paul Lucas is unimpressed.
"Those sort of attitudes of that sort of people are disgraceful and disgusting," he said.
But the president of the Gold Coast North Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Tony White, says there could be a case for the state government to go further if skinhead groups continue to meet on the Gold Coast and cause trouble.
"If it escalates, I think something maybe has got to be put to law by the State Government," he said.
"We know that they can bring in these laws - they ban bikie gangs, so if they can ban bikie gangs, they can ban these outlaw Nazi gangs ... if they start causing problems that is."