Clashes between far left and right-wing protesters are losing steam, police claim, despite a violent showdown in Melbourne during a visit by controversial British commentator Milo Yiannopoulos.
Several hundred police officers, dozens in riot gear, were brought in to separate activists during the melee that kicked off outside Yiannopoulos' speaking event on Monday night.
Two protesters were arrested - one from each side - with five officers suffering minor injuries, including one who was hit in the leg by a rock.
Convicted stalker and racial vilifier Neil Erikson and fellow right-wing activist Avi Yemeni were among the crowd.
While they had around 30-50 right-wing colleagues from groups such as Reclaim Australia and the True Blue Crew, they were heavily outnumbered by up to 500 left-wing protesters including the group Campaign Against Racism and Fascism.
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Victoria Police Assistant Commissioner Stephen Leane blames "Kardashian-style politics", with groups using attention-grabbing behaviour to promote their causes.
"What we're seeing in the whole world is if you don't have a 30-second grab of something really exciting, then you're not going to make the front page of the news," he told reporters on Tuesday.
"Both these groups - the left and the right - will do everything they can to go and attack the police to get that one shot where it looks like the police are responding in an aggressive way.
"It looked like a battlefield from an aerial platform."
However, Mr Leane says police have learnt how to outmanoeuvre protesters over recent years and are seeing a "diminishing" number of protests with a "reduced core" of activists.
Yiannopoulos blamed the "petulant babies" of the left for the clash.
"There was a lot of kerfuffle out front, it was not as the newspapers reported 'a clash between the far left and far right' it was the left, showing up, being violent to stop freedom of speech," he told Sydney radio 2GB.
"The left really showed us who they are ... they showed us they are petulant babies."
Left-wing protester Ezekiel Ox told 3AW they were protesting against Yiannopoulos in a "peaceful fashion" and accused police of escalating the violence.
Yiannopoulos is touring Australia, having resigned from website Breitbart News earlier this year after suggesting it was acceptable for older men to sleep with teenage boys.
His three speaking sessions on Monday each attracted about 1000 attendees at the Pavillion at Kensington which will be invoiced for the police presence, which tour organisers said would be $150,000.
Freight group Toll also responded to sightings of a right-wing protester wearing a company shirt, stating the man has never worked for the company and believed the move was an attempt to "damage our brand".
