Action Zealandia is a white nationalist group in New Zealand that emerged following the Christchurch mosque shootings in 2019 as the successor to an earlier group called the Dominion Movement. According to Newshub, Action Zealandia has restricted its membership to "physically fit, tidy European male[s] of sound mind and good character." In addition to its online activities, the group has plastered stickers, posted banners, and networked with other far-right and neo-Nazi groups in New Zealand and abroad. Action Zealandia has also attracted media attention after members made an online threat against Christchurch's Al Noor Mosque, attempted to start a terror cell, purchase weapons, and participated in the 2022 Wellington protest.
Ideology and goals According to the group's website, Action Zealandia's stated goal is to build a community for European New Zealanders. They claim that European identity is under threat from so-called "demographic replacement" caused by economically-motivated migration by non-European peoples. Action Zealandia also emphasises masculinity, physical fitness, and condemns drug use and so-called "sexual deviancy." In addition, Action Zealandia promotes nationalism, environmental sustainability and opposes free market capitalism and mass migration as detrimental to national identity and environmental sustainability.
According to the University of Waikato law academic Al Gillespie and Newsroom journalist Marc Daalder, Action Zealandia's ideology blends far-right nationalism with left-wing environmentalism, they are often involved in picking up rubbish and bushwalks. Action Zealandia is a fraternity also excludes women from becoming members but allows them as supporters; the disabled, drug addicts and obese individuals are also excluded from membership. Action Zealandia also opposes libertarianism on the grounds that free market capitalism contributes to the "demographic replacement" of European New Zealanders.
University of Auckland political scientist Chris Wilson and Stuff journalist James Halpin have classified Action Zealandia as a paramilitary group that sees itself as sowing the seeds for a mass nationalist movement seeking to normalise White nationalist talking points around European heritage, White identity, immigration and multiculturalism. While the group has not engaged in terrorist violence, members of Action Zealandia have promoted what the authors consider "hateful rhetoric" targeting minorities, women and leftists; which Wilson and Halpin argue could encourage acts of violence by individual actors.
Leadership and membership According to the University of Otago student magazine Critic Te Ārohi journalist Elliott Weir, Action Zealandia had about 30 active members as of August 2021 with at least eight supporters including three women. Although the majority of members are aged between 18 and 35 years, teenagers as young as 13 years of age have attempted to join the group.
As of August 2021, their leader is New Zealand Army reservist and former Army communications specialist James Fairburn, who is known by the codename "Hector." In June 2020, Daalder reported that Fairburn had attempted to use his reservist status to secure an "E" endorsement for his firearms license that would allow him to purchase semi-automatic firearms. Fairburn has participated in far-right Discord channels, promoted the White genocide conspiracy theory, advocated for White South African farmers, and opposed the United Nations' Global Compact for Migration. Fairburn said in January 2023 that he had not been involved with Action Zealandia since September 2021.
History and activities Dominion Movement According to the journalist Marc Daalder, Action Zealandia emerged in July 2019 as the successor to the Dominion Movement, a far-right group that ceased its activities following the Christchurch mosque shootings in March 2019. The Dominion Movement was a self-described "grass-roots Identitarian activist organisation committed to the revitalisation of our country and our people: White New Zealanders". The group condemned the Christchurch mosque shootings and claimed that it advocated non-violence. Due to the backlash against far-right groups as a result of the shootings, the Dominion Movement ceased operations and shut down its website. In addition, the Dominion Movement opposed consumerism, immigration, and the existence of transgender people.
According to a Stuff report, an alleged co-founder of the Dominion Movement was a New Zealand Defence Force soldier named Johann Wolfe, who was facing court martial in January 2020 for conducting four counts of espionage and two counts of attempted espionage with an undisclosed group. He was also the first New Zealander to have been charged with espionage. According to The New Zealand Herald, Wolfe was a founding leader of Action Zealandia and had expressed support for Brenton Tarrant, the Christchurch mosque shooter.
While Action Zealandia has denied any connection to the Dominion Movement, Daalder uncovered a set of leaked documents which confirmed that members of Dominion Movement had intentionally established Action Zealandia. These documents instructed members to conceal their connections to the former Dominion Movement and encouraged former Dominion members to lie to other Action Zealandia members about their prior affiliation. As a security precaution, these guidelines also advised former Dominion members to destroy or conceal their branded flags and other memorabilia associated with the Dominion Movement. Sam Brittenden Sam Brittenden, a Christchurch-born former law student, is an Action Zealandia member whose activities attracted sustained police and media attention, spanning an anti-Muslim outburst in 2019, a mosque-threat investigation in 2020, and a subsequent drink-driving incident involving a high-speed pursuit.
On the night of 15–16 March 2019, hours after the Christchurch mosque attacks, the then-18-year-old—a first-year University of Otago law student—was drinking with other students in Dunedin when he repeatedly shouted anti-Muslim abuse and told a police patrol clearing Castle Street, "Muslims are not welcome in our country. Go home Muslims," before accusing the officers of being right-wing fascists when they challenged him. He pleaded guilty to disorderly behaviour. His lawyer's unsuccessful bid to have his name permanently suppressed described the outburst as drunken and foolish, and Brittenden was sentenced to 125 hours' community work and six months' supervision. He told reporters afterwards that he was not racist, citing a Muslim friend he had contacted to check on after the attack.
A year later, in the lead-up to the attacks' first anniversary, an image began circulating on a Telegram channel dedicated to the alleged Christchurch gunman: a man in a skull-patterned balaclava, photographed from a car outside Al Noor Mosque, posted with threatening text on 1 March 2020 and viewed thousands of times. Chat logs obtained by Newsroom from the anti-fascist research group Paparoa showed the account holder identifying as an Action Zealandia member, a connection Stuff was first to report. Action Zealandia publicly distanced itself, calling the alleged conduct outside its code of conduct and "immature and unproductive." Separately, Newsroom reported that another, unnamed Action Zealandia member had been discussing the formation of armed "terror cells" with overseas extremist groups, including the US-based Atomwaffen Division. That member claimed a connection to Brittenden and referenced his arrest, though the terror-cell discussion was not attributed to Brittenden himself.
Police raided a Christchurch property on 4 March 2020 and arrested the 19-year-old Brittenden. He was not charged over the threat itself. Instead, after officers found a cellphone in the house that he initially denied owning and then gave several incorrect passcodes for, he was charged with failing to assist a search warrant. He appeared in the Christchurch District Court the next day, where an application for name suppression—made on the grounds further charges were pending—was declined, and he was remanded on bail with conditions barring him from Hagley Park and from possessing firearms. Days later, a confidential New Zealand Police Financial Intelligence Unit memo was also leaked onto the same Telegram channel. Police said distributing it was illegal, but the leak itself was not attributed to Brittenden.
The raid and arrest prompted a public reaction from Brittenden's father, Scott Brittenden. The Press reported that his father expressed shame at his son's actions.
Brittenden pleaded guilty to the search-warrant charge in July 2020. His lawyer told the court his client had been "foolish" and had since written to police apologising for wasting their time. Police said no further charges would follow. He was convicted and fined $500 plus court costs, and left court flanked by private security without commenting to media. The following year, a Paparoa spokesperson cited Brittenden's case as part of a recurring pattern of anniversary-linked far-right threats against Christchurch mosques.
In March 2022, the Irish newspaper The Southern Star reported that Brittenden was believed to be relocating to Reenascreena, near Rosscarbery in West Cork, to join SSPX Resistance—a traditionalist Catholic splinter group whose founders include Richard Williamson, a bishop convicted of Holocaust denial in Germany. Brittenden was reported to have joined the group's New Zealand chapter and to be planning to travel to the West Cork base via Belfast.
In 2026, Brittenden was involved in a drink-driving rampage in Christchurch in which he assaulted a teenage girl with his car during a high-speed chase. The teenager said she was psychologically traumatised by the incident and feared Brittenden would find her. In the Christchurch District Court, Brittenden was sentenced to six months nightly curfew, 100 hours community work and disqualified from driving.
Jordan Milburn
In 2022, Jordan Milburn ran for 2022 Upper Hutt City Council election. Milburn said he grew up here and "would like to raise his young family here." He ran on positions such as "ensuring our city grows sustainable without ruining the beautiful scenery that surrounds our city." Milburn argued he could "bring new energy, a new voice, new charisma, something to it, to revitalise the city to ensure it stays a great place to live."
After anti-racism group Paparoa accused Milburn of having links to neo-nazi group Action Zealandia and espousing “pro-white” views, he resigned from his job as a software engineer at Civil Aviation Authority of New Zealand. He also worked for Department of Corrections.
Milburn was accused of running a white supremacist podcast Voice of Zealandia under the alias 'Zane', where he said "I think that we have to accept that we have to play that game, that if you’re pro-white then you’re part of our in-group and if you’re not pro-white, you’re not. We have to say: If you’re one of us, we will act with extreme cohesion and we will try and build strong group solidarity together – using each other’s businesses through economic communities, controlling social services and moving to take control within local councils and local regions." On other episodes, Milburn interviewed English white nationalist Mark Collett and the leader of the far-right Australia First Party, Jim Saleam.
A document was uncovered, where under the alias 'Zane', Milburn sent a 28-page Word document to Action Zealandia members with anti-semitic slurs and comments, including calling Massey University Professor Paul Spoonley a “Jewish puppet ... he produces academic work on behalf of Jews when he is paid” The document was obtained by Elliot Weir, editor at Otago University’s student magazine Critic Te Ārohi, who was undercover in Action Zealandia for 6 months.