Why aren’t Australian authorities banning more far-right extremist groups?

This week, Australia’s Department of Home Affairs formally added the far-right extremist Sonnenkrieg Division to the list of designated terrorist groups.

It was a milestone moment; the first time a white supremacist organisation had appeared on a list overwhelmingly dominated by Islamist groups such as Islamic State and Jemaah Islamiyah.

But it also raised some big questions. Why has it taken so long? And why aren’t more far-right extremist groups on the list of proscribed organisations?

“It’s an important tool that we’re depriving ourselves of,” said Greg Barton, professor of Global Islamic Politics at Deakin University.

“If you proscribe a group, it means that if people are fundraising for it, or otherwise spruiking it or marketing it,…