Alleged Porepunkah shooter Dezi Freeman is a self-proclaimed ‘sovereign citizen’. What does he believe?

The ambush that killed two Victoria Police officers and wounded a third in Victoria’s alpine region highlights the deadly reach of the “sovereign citizen” movement, a fringe ideology that refuses to recognise Australia’s laws and is increasingly turning violent.

Security agencies have long warned that sovereign citizens – dubbed “SovCits” in an Australian Federal Police briefing paper made public in 2023 – are no longer just harmless eccentrics.

Fuelled by COVID lockdowns, online conspiracy networks and imported American rhetoric, the movement has hardened into a threat now considered a serious risk by police, courts and intelligence services.

Who are Australia’s sovereign citizens?

The alleged gunman at Porepunkah, 56-year-old Dezi Freeman, is a self-proclaimed adherent of the movement, members of which believe the laws of Australia do not apply to them.

The attack near Porepunkah shares chilling similarities with the 2022 Wieambilla siege in Queensland, in which police officers Matthew Arnold and Rachel McCrow were murdered by extremists who also subscribed to sovereign citizen conspiracies.

Such attacks have led security agencies to warn that the sovereign citizen movement is growing in organisation and volatility. Tuesday’s violence raises the latest fears this sort of fringe belief system can translate into real-world violence.

What is a sovereign citizen?

A sovereign citizen is part of a fringe anti-government movement whose members believe they are not bound by the laws of the state they live in.

They consider laws, from paying taxes and registering a vehicle to obeying police directions, to be illegitimate contracts to which they have not consented and are not bound.

The AFP’s briefing, released to Crikey journalist Cam Wilson under freedom-of-information laws, notes that historically, the movement was characterised by “eccentric types” who established micro-nations or extreme libertarians who refused to pay tax or get a driver’s licence.

This included people like Prince Leonard Casley, whose West Australian “Hutt River Province” claimed to have seceded from Australia.

Since then, though, what was once considered a disconnected and mostly harmless fringe has grown into what security agencies view as an organised and potentially violent threat.

What does a sovereign citizen believe?

At its core, the ideology is built on its adherents having a “strong belief they are morally and legally correct”. They are often confident they’ll “be vindicated once the government is deposed”, the AFP briefing document says.

According to the AFP, followers use “idiosyncratic interpretations of common law principles, human rights laws and even the Magna Carta to de-legitimise government authority and empower their movement”.

This leads to the belief that individuals can simply opt out of being governed. A common phrase used when confronted by law enforcement is “I don’t consent”, reflecting a belief that state authority is optional. During anti-lockdown protests, some followers chanted “you serve us” at police.

Social media videos have proliferated of sovereign citizens refusing routine requests from law enforcement, claiming they are outside the jurisdiction of the state.

Dezi Freeman had himself fought a case against police in which he attempted to “arrest” a magistrate and participated in an attempted private prosecution of then Victorian premier Daniel Andrews for treason during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Why are sovereign citizens considered dangerous?

The attacks in Porepunkah and Wieambilla are the most extreme examples of violence by adherents of the movement.

Dr Josh Roose, a Deakin University expert on political violence, said on Tuesday that the movement has a long history of violence directed at law enforcement, adding that followers believe it is vital to “arm themselves to resist any form of authority”.

While many followers claim to be non-violent, advocating violence only as a “last resort” or only necessary in the form of “self-defence”, the AFP warns that these groups may still be dangerous.

“The potential for violence, fixation and harassment exists within these groups,” the briefing paper says, also pointing to a “propensity for fixation on high office holders and public figures, as well as some within the movement urging violence”.

Often, the rhetoric of sovereign citizens leans on American revolutionary language and concepts of patriotism.

Kristina Murphy, a professor of criminology at Queensland’s Griffith University, says traffic stops are a major flashpoint. Adherents often have “reactive personality traits” and dislike being told what to do, she says, and their distrust of authority has frequently been triggered by financial difficulties or another life event.

Has there been an increase in Australia of people who identify as sovereign citizens?

The AFP has noted a “resurgence in the sovereign citizen movement in Australia” that has been “significantly shaped by the government response to the COVID-19 pandemic as well as international movements”.

This new movement is more organised and evangelising, and it increasingly overlaps with other fringe groups, including anti-vax groups, conspiracy groups and far-right extremists.

ASIO Director-General Mike Burgess warned in February that COVID-19 had “fuelled and accelerated spikes in grievance, conspiracy and anti-authority beliefs”.

Murphy says the pandemic “turbocharged the ideology” as people searched for ways to evade things like mask mandates and border closures.

“That’s when we started seeing a lot of videos popping up on social media of police having these interactions with people who considered themselves ‘sovereign citizens’,” she says.

She adds that while the number of people subscribing to the ideology now is not huge, “research internationally does show that it is a growing phenomenon, and it’s growing particularly quickly in Australia. This could be due to Australia being locked down a lot harder during the pandemic compared to other countries.”

ASIO’s Burgess has also repeatedly warned about the acceleration of anti-authority beliefs since the pandemic.

The AFP states that all manner of online forums and social media channels have allowed individual sovereign citizens to easily connect with each other around the country and around the world, fostering transnational information-sharing and support.

How long have there been sovereign citizens?

As a concept, individuals identifying as sovereign citizens in Australia have existed for decades. Historically, the movement consisted of isolated individuals or small groups who were considered mostly harmless.

The ideological roots are complex, with some analysts tracing elements of the anti-government, common-law focus back to radical groups from the English Civil War era. However, the modern, networked and conspiracy-driven movement is a distinctly contemporary phenomenon.

What does a sovereign citizen believe about common law?

Sovereign citizens believe common law is the only legitimate law and that it can be used to invalidate all government legislation and authority, from parliament to the courts. They cherry-pick historical documents, particularly the Magna Carta, to create what the AFP calls “idiosyncratic interpretations” of legal principles.

As reported by The Guardian newspaper in the UK, where the movement is also known as “freemen on the land”, adherents claim individuals are bound only by laws and contracts to which they have personally consented.

This pseudo-legal reasoning is used to justify ignoring everything from council tax bills and parking fines to court summonses and police orders.

Journalist Cam Wilson is co-author of the book Conspiracy Nation, published by Ultimo Press last month.

He says the term “sovereign citizen” is a sub-category of a broader movement of “pseudo-law” adherents – people who will “engage with institutions and authority using a law-sounding language and ideas that are almost entirely founded in misinterpretations of the law itself”.

According to Wilson, adherents often point to a specific historical moment to justify their belief that the modern legal system is a sham. “In Australia, you see people referring to when Australia separated from the British legal system,” he says. “Or other moments they are able to point to – like a change in official currency or a referendum – that they use to claim that everything from thereafter is not official.”

The entry point for many into the ideology is often a personal crisis. Wilson says people are commonly drawn in when dealing with an event like a speeding fine or being unable to meet mortgage payments. “In response to that sort of stimulus, they then seek answers provided by pseudo-law figures who say you can get out of these things.”

He cites the example of a woman in his book who, facing foreclosure, was influenced by a pseudo-law figure who convinced her she could stop the bank from taking possession of her house using a pseudo-law defence in court. That didn’t sway the judge. Now she is set to lose her home.

“It’s often a smaller interaction with the legal system that then spirals into something greater because rather than dealing with the issue that’s facing them, they instead embrace a fantasy of how they could get themselves out of the problem,” Wilson says.

Wilson cautions that while the rhetoric can be violent, most followers are not. The danger, he says, is in the unpredictability. “There are a lot of people who would use ‘sovereign citizen’ tactics who never go anywhere near violence ... But it’s impossible [for police] to be able to determine from a distance who in these movements are the ones who are actually going to act out on threats.”

Do sovereign citizens win in court?

The legal arguments used by sovereign citizens have consistently and repeatedly been rejected by courts in Australia and internationally. Their theories have no legal validity.

Southern Cross University professor David Heilpern, a former magistrate, said sovereign citizens had never had a major victory in court using common law arguments.

“There are not only no cases in Australia that they have won, but there are no significant cases throughout the world,” he said. “That’s not to say that people shouldn’t challenge the law – we live in a democracy; go hard if you want to challenge it. And similarly, the law does change over time. But in terms of fundamentally separating yourself from the obligation to comply with the laws of the land, there is no authority for that position.”

In Britain, The Guardian reported that the Financial Conduct Authority had warned that people were being misled by the ideology, often with “serious financial consequences”.

A spokesperson for the regulator, quoted in The Guardian, noted that claims based on the ideology have never succeeded in court because “they’re not legally valid”. Australian courts have similarly dismissed all such arguments as baseless.

Dezi Freeman’s private prosecution of Daniel Andrews was thrown out of court.

Kristina Murphy, the Griffith University criminology professor, says her research shows that Australians tend to be more compliant and law-abiding than many other nations – but that for many there was a shift during COVID lockdowns, in Victoria in particular. “There was a lot of rhetoric about it being ‘the end of our freedoms and we need to fight back’.”

Murphy says this led many who considered themselves sovereign citizens to have a deep-seated sense that they were “fighting for freedom”.

While she acknowledges a “real risk of violence” from followers who target law enforcement, she stresses not all are dangerous. “The vast majority will not become violent extremists,” she says, noting many are “just disgruntled and clog up the court system”.

Does the sovereign citizen ideology borrow beliefs from the MAGA movement in the United States?

While not a direct offshoot, the sovereign citizen movement shares significant ideological ground with the MAGA movement and other far-right US groups.

Both are characterised by a profound distrust of democratic institutions, a belief in widespread conspiracies (the “deep state”), and the conviction that a legitimate government has been usurped by a corrupt, tyrannical entity.

The AFP briefing document makes a direct link to the political violence seen in the US, stating: “The events of January 6 [2021] in the US demonstrated the seriousness of the threat when a group rejects an election result and mobilises against a government structure.”

In its briefing document, the AFP noted this “will certainly be a space we watch closely”.

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