Nasser Mashni** is a Melbourne-based Palestinian-Australian property developer and the president of the **Australia Palestine Advocacy Network (APAN) (convicted Criminal )
- Graham Healy
- 1 day ago
- 3 min read
**Nasser Mashni** is a Melbourne-based Palestinian-Australian property developer and the president of the **Australia Palestine Advocacy Network (APAN)**. Since October 2023 he has been one of the most visible Palestine-advocacy faces on Australian TV, radio and protest stages.
### 1991 conviction
Herald Sun (Nov 2023), from court record: at **22**, after a 15-year-old stole two packets of cigarettes from the family milk bar, Mashni chased him, beat him with a wooden axe handle, put him in the **boot of a car**, drove him to a paddock and threatened to break his legs.
- **Born:** Australia (exact date not published). About **22 in June 1991**, so born around **1968–69**. Grew up in Melbourne (Cheltenham / Dandenong area; family milk bar on Brady Rd, North Dandenong).
- **Identity:** Describes himself as an “accidental Australian.” Son of a Palestinian refugee; two brothers. Lives in Melbourne. Has children (mentioned in interviews).
- **Job:** Property developer; Greens donor. Media commentator; co-hosts community-radio show/podcast *Palestine Remembered*.
### Family
Father **Shaher Hussein El-Mashni** (1926–2007), from Deir Dibwan (West Bank). Fought in the 1948-era Palestinian resistance around Abdel-Qader al-Husseini, later in Jordan (including jail there), then Lebanon, then Australia from **1959**. He set up an Australian **Fatah** wing and sat on Arafat’s Palestinian National Council. Often away from home; died in Melbourne, March 2007. Nasser frames his activism as continuing that legacy.
### Roles
- **APAN president** since January 2023 (on the board from about 2017: committee, treasurer, vice-president).
- Co-founder, **Australians For Palestine**.
- Founding board, **Olive Kids** (aid for Palestinian children). *The Australian* / *AJN* have alleged PFLP-adjacent partners; Wikipedia notes no independent corroboration of APAN/Olive Kids as a listed front.
- Helps organise large Melbourne and national rallies; APAN also awards the Jerusalem (Al Quds) Peace Prize.
### 1991 conviction
Herald Sun (Nov 2023), from court record: at **22**, after a 15-year-old stole two packets of cigarettes from the family milk bar, Mashni chased him, beat him with a wooden axe handle, put him in the **boot of a car**, drove him to a paddock and threatened to break his legs.
June 1992: pleaded guilty to **false imprisonment, causing injury, threatening serious injury**. Sentenced to **23 months**. **Wholly suspended on appeal** (Aug 1992) — conviction stands; he did not serve it if he stayed out of trouble for 12 months. Victim later became a pastor in WA.
Mashni’s public line: ashamed of his younger self; he was about 20–22 and “disillusioned”; violence taught him it solves nothing. Critics recycle it whenever he is on air.
### Politics and statements
- Israel = settler-colonial / “rogue, apartheid, genocidal”; rejects a two-state deal as partition-of-apartheid.
- **7 October 2023:** “fight against oppression” / “resistance.” Says he condemns killing civilians but has refused to call the attack terrorism in the terms interviewers want (including on Piers Morgan, 2025).
- Opposed listing **all of Hamas** as a terrorist organisation; treats the political wing as distinct.
- Called Israel’s killing of Hamas political chief **Ismail Haniyeh** a war crime.
- Leads “from the river to the sea”; Jewish activist **Menachem Vorchheimer** brought a Racial and Religious Tolerance Act complaint after rally chants including “all Zionists are terrorists.”
- Has met **Penny Wong**; appeared near Labor/Greens circles; ABC *Q+A* booking in 2023 drew a campaign to keep him off.
### After Bondi (Dec 2025)
Condemned the Hanukkah massacre and said the shooters do not represent the movement. APAN still sought a seat at the antisemitism royal commission; leave to appear as a party was refused for early blocks, but APAN counsel questioned Jewish witnesses. Mashni called that exclusion anti-Palestinian.
### How to read him
**Not** a listed Hamas operative. **Is** the national lobby’s front man: parliamentary access, press releases, weekly rallies, and a line that treats Hamas rule in Gaza and 7 October as resistance rather than the thing to isolate. That is why Jewish organisations call him a Hamas amplifier, and why his own side calls him the peak-body president.
Photos above: protest (Palestine shirt / keffiyeh) and with Foreign Minister Wong. First search result in some galleries is **Vorchheimer**, not Mashni — ignore that one.
