James Saleam is an Australianfar-right extremist and the current chairman of the Australia First Party. Saleam has been observed wearing a swastika armband and associating with neo-Nazi skinheads. Saleam has been described as a white nationalist, who has been a strong advocate of barring further immigration to preserve a "self-contained, predominantly white nation resistant to further immigration or watering-down of its culture".
Early life
Saleam, the son of Lebanese immigrants, was born on September 18, 1955 in Maryborough, Queensland. In 1970, at the age 15 he joined the National Socialist Party of Australia. He was arrested and convicted for the fire-bombing a Maoist bookshop in Brisbane in 1972.
Political activism
Before moving to the far-right, Saleam was a member of the Worker Student Alliance, a youth organisation involved with the Communist Party of Australia. In 1975, "much to his later chagrin", Saleam was photographed in full Nazi uniform at a public meeting. On Anzac Day 1982, he co-founded National Action, which eventually collapsed due to Saleam's convictions for property offences and fraud in 1984, possession of a prohibited article - a large nail-studded club in 1985, and for organising a shotgun attack in 1989 on African National Congress Australian representative Eddie Funde, for which he served three years in prison. After his release from prison, Saleam was awarded a PhD in politics from the University of Sydney by writing a thesis entitled The Other Radicalism: An Inquiry into Contemporary Australian Extreme Right Ideology, Politics And Organization 1975–1995. Saleam has acted as a mentor for the Patriotic Youth League. In 2004, Saleam contested the NSW local government elections, and ran for Marrickville Council on an anti-refugee platform. In 2012, he ran for NSW local government election in the City of Blue Mountains.
Saleam was the Secretary of the Sydney branch of the Australia First Party between 2002 and 2007, when he became its chairman, and sought to reestablish the party. In July 2009, he announced that it had reached its target of 500 members and was registering the New South Wales branch party with the Australian Electoral Commission and was reregistered on 13 June 2010, in time to contest the 2010 federal election. AFP contested the 2013 federal election, Saleam standing in the seat of Cook on a platform to end refugee intakes, running against Scott Morrison. He received 617 votes, or 0.67% of the vote. On 14 July 2015, the AEC deregistered the AFP due to its failure to demonstrate the required number of members. It was reregistered on 1 March 2016 as "Australia First Party Incorporated". Saleam stood at the 2016 federal election in the seat of Lindsay and received 1068 votes or 1.2% of the vote. He stood for AFP in the 2018 Longman by-election, receiving 709 votes or 0.8% of the vote. Saleam stood in the seat of Cootamundra, New South Wales, in the 2017 by-election as an independent, though still a member of Australia First, as the party is not registered for state elections. He received 453 votes, 1% of the total. He again stood in the seat at the 2019 New South Wales state election as an independent, receiving 0.95% of the vote. Saleam's platform included the reintroduction of the White Australia policy and opposition to Chinese immigration.
Personal life
Saleam married Jane Mengler in 1987. They had two children and divorced in 1994.
Electoral history
Federal Parliament elections state Parliament elections
