Youths riding around in vehicles bashed cars and smashed store windows in suburban Sydney last night, police said, as violence continued for a second night in a row.
A police spokesman said the rampage broke out in Cronulla, the same beachside suburb where a night of race riots resulted in scores of arrests on Sunday, and in neighboring Caringbah.
"We have shops damaged at Caringbah, cars damaged at Cronulla," New South Wales police spokesman Paul Bugden said. "We have six arrests at this stage."
One person was apparently hit with a rock outside the Cronulla police station, he added, saying that youths riding around in cars were involved in the violence.
The AAP news agency said gunshots had been heard near Cronulla's beach, but police did not confirm the report.
Bugden said he did not have descriptions of those involved in last night's violence, but said the rampage, which spilled over into the early hours of this morning, "obviously stems from the last 24-48 hours."
By around 12:30am, calm had returned to the suburbs targeted by the carloads of youths.
A resident of the suburb of Brighton-Le-Sands, Steven Dawson, said a bottle thrown through his apartment window showered his five-month-old son with glass, but did not hurt the child.
"That bottle could have killed him," Dawson said.
Horst Dreizner said a car was rammed through the front doors of his denture store, causing thousands of dollars worth of damage.
He said he feared the violence would escalate.
"Personally, I think it is only the beginning," he said.
AAP, citing a resident who declined to be named, said men riding in up to 50 cars and wielding baseball bats converged on Cronulla, smashing cars. Ambulances were called to help at least one injured man seen on the side of the road.
Earlier yesterday, Prime Minister John Howard condemned Sunday's violence, but said he did not believe Australian society has an undercurrent of racism.
"I do not accept that there is underlying racism in this country," he said.
Sunday's fighting left 31 people injured, including police and paramedics. One was hospitalized after being stabbed in the back by a man police said was Arab in appearance. There were 16 arrests.
"What we have seen yesterday is something I thought I would never see in Australia and perhaps we have not seen in Australia in any of our lifetimes, and that is a mass call to violence based on race," Community Relations Commission chairman Stepan Kerkyasharian told Sky News.
New South Wales police chief Ken Moroney called Sunday's rioting among "the worst violence that I have ever seen in my policing service of 40 years."
New South Wales Premier Morris Iemma said police would hunt down the instigators of the violence, which authorities said was fanned by neo-Nazis.
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