Far right sovereign citizen movement gaining traction in Australia

These are 'sovereign citizens'.

Emboldened by COVID-19 restrictions such as mask and vaccine mandates, at the core of their philosophy is a conviction that the government and the police are illegitimate.

Sovereign citizens refuse to pay taxes, rates and car registration or comply with Australian laws.

The Principality of Hutt River in Western Australian, that claimed to be an independent sovereign state in 1970, was one of the first Australian examples of sovereign citizenship. It issued its own stamps, passports, and currency until it was dissolved in 2020.

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center in the US, at least 300,000 Americans identify as 'sovereigns' or sometimes as 'constitutionalists' or 'freemen'.

Alfred Deakin Institute for citizenship and globalisation associate professor Dr Josh Roose told ACM the movement is grounded in a distrust of authority.

"It's tied to the idea that well, who are the government to tell us what to do, we can just declare sovereignty over our own our own lives. So why should we be paying tax? Why should we be having to register our names with the government in order to live our lives?

"Really, it's about why should why should the government have any power over us whatsoever," he said.

"But it's got strong, violent potential, because you reject the government and its legitimacy. Then you also reject law, authorities and enforcement. And so there's been incidences of sovereign citizens shooting police officers."

The perpetrators of the December 2022 Wieambilla police shootings were originally though to have subscribed to a philosophy adjacent to sovereign citizenship.

Police now say December's fatal Wieambilla shootings were motivated by an extreme Christian ideology called premillennialism that maintains that Jesus will physically return to earth before the millennium, heralding a thousand-year golden age of peace.

Viral footage on Tik Tok and Instagram show sovereign citizens refusing to show ID such as driver's licences or giving their name and address.

It is a core belief of the movement that "sovereigns" have the right to travel freely without the need for a drivers licence, vehicle registration, or insurance.

University of Tasmania researcher of far-right extremism Dr Kaz Ross told ACM that this is just one of the extreme beliefs held by adherents to the sovereign citizen movement.

"The most crazy of them believe that when you're born, you're a living person. And that once you have your birth certificate registered, you create what's called a 'straw person'," she said.

"So they believe that when you're born your body weight in gold is put into your account. And so that when you're getting fined by the government, it's your straw person that's getting fined. But actually, what they're doing is just taking money from your gold account that was there from when you were born."

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Dr Ross said older people lacking media literacy are often drawn towards the movement.

"During the pandemic, it was basically people who, unfortunately had a lot of time to spend on social media," she said.

"But there is a sense generally, whether you're a conspiracy person or not, that things are really going terribly wrong. There's a housing crisis, there's a health crisis down here in Hobart, you can't get a doctor, there's nowhere to rent.

"There's the environmental crisis. So the sense generally, I believe, is that people are riled up, worried, exhausted."