The number of alleged war criminals at large in Australia grew alarmingly as the Hawke government moved against Nazis who had fled Europe after World War II.

Then attorney-general Lionel Bowen told cabinet in March 1988 that the original number of suspected war criminals had gone from more than 70 to more than 450.

The previous year, the War Crimes Act 1945 had been amended to allow people in Australia who had committed serious war crimes to be brought to justice.

Bowen said the public expected the government would act quickly and decisively.

"However, there is considerable concern among some ethnic communities as to the authenticity of evidence from Eastern Bloc countries," he said.

Bowen was worried that the war crimes trials were carried out with no diminution of the normal standards of justice applicable in Australia.

Despite trepidations concerning the use of overseas witnesses, and the difficulties of using federal criminal law for offences committed outside Australia, cabinet endorsed providing resources for the Special Investigation Unit to initiate prosecutions.

Eventually, three trials of alleged Nazi collaborators from the Ukrainian community were conducted in South Australia.

Time and distance made them fraught affairs - one witness from Ukraine pointed to an American tourist in the public gallery when asked if she could see the man who had committed war crimes in the court - and no convictions were secured.

Racism alive and violent

The changing pattern of violence by two high-profile racist groups in 1989 became a concern to cabinet.

A memorandum to cabinet's security committee said National Action and the neo-Nazi Perth-based Australian Nationalists Movement had become increasingly dangerous.

"These have passed from acts largely of harassment and vandalism to attacks in which there is some prospect of loss of life," the memorandum said.

"The reason for this is not clear but may be related to a change in the debate on Asian immigration and multiculturalism and to concerns over Japanese investment in Australia."

Cabinet was told that the NA leader, James Saleam, dismissed the possibility of achieving power by parliamentary means and wanted Australians to become "accustomed to political turmoil, disorder and even social violence".

"The main theme of NA's 'Political Programme' proposes that a 'White Australia' be established, by restricting immigration to persons of European racial descent, by deporting illegal immigrants and repatriating those who can not or will not assimilate into the Australian culture. 'Asianisation' is described in Saleam's pamphlets as the 'major enemy of the Australian People and Nation', and 'a matter which is certain to be decided by guns – through national war and possibly civil war'."

The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation told cabinet that racist activists had conducted symbolic necklacing against an anti-apartheid activist, caused disorder at a gay meeting in Sydney, attacked a Sydney journalist's home with a crossbow, and carried out a shotgun attack on the home of an African National Congress representative.

Others had been arrested on explosive charges, firebomb attacks on Chinese restaurants, for planning a limpet bomb attack on a US warship carrying African American crew and the murder of a man who was due to give evidence against the ANM.

Cabinet was also told the racists were a serious and expensive targeting problem for ASIO that would require the reduction or removal of resources from other important areas of investigation.

"There is little prospect that its operational investment will yield the required penetration quickly."