Didn’t work out as she’d hoped I guess ?
The trial heard the “statement of notice” the woman handed to the care worker asserted she was “a living being sovereign to this land” who “hereby renounce and reject my former engagement with the courts… and their kronies (sic)… and disregard all orders as null and void”.
Throughout the trial the woman regularly interrupted the proceedings, resulting in Judge Haesler finding her in contempt of court.
“[She] repeatedly interjected, directed personal insults to me and others, harassed witnesses (including her own [children]), refused my directions and orders and talked over me excessively,” Judge Haesler wrote in a scathing judgement.
I didn’t know this flavor of dumbass was international, I thought we only grew them in the US. Though, given the beliefs, I suppose it really could be adapted anywhere.
I’ve seen it cited that the sovcit movement exists in 26 countries
We import all sorts of fringe political positions from the US.
Including the not-so-fringe idea that voting for a minor party is a wasted vote.
Tom Tanuki created a two-part summary of the two main Aussie SovCit movements:
p1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ea_7jUU489g
p2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIrcWtuLkdA
A couple of interesting notes I remember:
We may have actually exported it to the rest of the world! In 1970, we had the Hutt River Province secede from the nation of Australia. To be fair to old Prince Leonard - he had valid grievances and was not just a nutter. The Australian Government was imposing wheat quotas on him when he was just about to harvest, and frankly didn’t exactly offer him much in the way of services.
According to my 2-minutes of Wikipedia research (which makes me an expert on this topic, don’t you know?), the Soverign Citizen Movement appeared in the USA in the “early 1970’s”. Which sounds to me like it may have drawn inspiration from the waves that Prince Leonard was making in Western Australia.