The Echidna | Damned if you ignore the neo-Nazis, damned if you don't

The temptation is to ridicule them. Dismiss them as neo-numpties rather than neo-Nazis, a label that affords them some of the menace they so crave.

Numpties, they surely are, in their black bucket hats, raincoats and dark glasses, lining up outside the NSW Parliament like toy soldiers with bad haircuts, mouthing Hitler Youth chants in front of a clearly anti-Semitic banner.

That stunt - entirely legal and embarrassing for the NSW government, which only learned of it after the event - won the numpties something else they desperately hanker for: attention. And that makes writing this difficult.

"Modern neo-Nazis crave attention and publicity. It gives them credibility and helps with recruitment," ASIO boss Mike Burgess told the Lowy Institute a couple of weeks ago.

"They see journalists