WHAT SOVEREIGN MEANS — AND WHAT IT DOES NOT

The Name

A sovereign nation is one that governs itself: its laws are made by its own Parliament, its decisions are made in its own interest, and no foreign government, foreign money or foreign lobby directs them. That is what the word means in our name, and it is the whole of what it means. Our slogan states it: Australia and Australians first, for a Sovereign Australia.

What We Are Not

There is a movement whose followers call themselves “sovereign citizens”. Its central claim is that the laws of the country do not bind the individual person without their consent — that courts have no authority over them, and that licences, registration and tax can be argued away with the right form of words. Australian courts have rejected those arguments consistently. They do not work, and the people who rely on them lose.

Sovereign Australia has no connection to that movement, and we reject its central claim. The two positions are opposites. The sovereign citizen places the individual above the nation’s law. We place the nation’s law above every individual — including ourselves, our members and our candidates.

Porepunkah

On 26 August 2025, Dezi Freeman, a self-described sovereign citizen, shot dead two Victoria Police officers — Detective Leading Senior Constable Neal Thompson and Senior Constable Vadim De Waart — and seriously wounded a third while they served a search warrant at Porepunkah, Victoria. He was shot dead by police in March 2026 after seven months at large. For many Australians, that is what the words “sovereign” and “citizen” now bring to mind — and rightly so.

Let this page leave no doubt: Sovereign Australia has no connection, association or affiliation of any kind with Dezi Freeman, with the Porepunkah shootings, with the sovereign citizen movement, or with any person, group or network associated with any of them. We condemn those killings, the ideology behind them, and all violence against police, without reservation.

We Follow The Law. We Do Not Look For Shortcuts.

We adhere to the laws of the nation of Australia. We do not look for shortcuts, loopholes or pseudolegal arguments. Where we believe a law is wrong, we say so in public, with our reasoning and sources attached, and we seek to change it through Parliament. That is the only method we use.

The party’s own conduct is the proof. We are seeking registration as a political party under the Commonwealth Electoral Act — a list of at least 1,500 enrolled members, verified by the Australian Electoral Commission — and under the WA Electoral Act, which requires 500 members who are electors. In this by-election our candidate appears on the ballot as an Independent, because the party’s registration is not yet complete and that is what the law provides. Our campaign material carries the authorisation the law requires. A movement that rejected the system would do none of this. We are doing all of it, by the book, because the book is the point.

Magna Carta — The Rule We Keep

On 15 June 1215 at Runnymede, King John sealed Magna Carta. Clause 39 provided that no free man could be seized, imprisoned, stripped of his rights or possessions, outlawed or otherwise punished, except by the lawful judgment of his equals or by the law of the land. Clause 40 added: to no one will we sell, to no one will we deny or delay, right or justice. Its principle — that the governing power is itself under the law — is the root of the rule of law Australia inherited, carried into our system through the common law, and its due-process chapter remains on the statute books of several Australian states and territories through their Imperial Acts Application Acts.

Sovereign Australia believes in that statute and stands on its principle: no Australian punished, detained or dispossessed except through lawful judgment and according to the law of the land. That is the test we apply to every law Parliament makes — including modern national-security powers of compulsory questioning and detention — and it is why we support sunset clauses, judicial oversight and open parliamentary review of every extraordinary power. Rights this old are not kept by reciting them. They are kept by scrutiny, in Parliament, every time a government asks for more power.

And the distinction on this page holds here too. Magna Carta binds power under the law — it exempts no one from the law. The sovereign citizen movement recites Magna Carta as a personal exemption, and Australian courts have rejected that reading every time it has been tried. We honour the document for what it actually says: due process for all, everyone under the one law — kings, governments, parties and citizens alike.

A Sovereign Nation, Free From Foreign Influence

The sovereignty we seek is the nation’s. Australia has a lobbying register that is self-reported and incompletely enforced, and a Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme that has been unevenly applied. Our first-listed national issue is Australian sovereignty from foreign influence, in both government and the military, and the mechanism is a Royal Commission into Lobbying and Foreign Influence — one uniform standard applied to every entity seeking to shape Australian policy from an external interest base, whichever country it aligns with. Register, disclose, or face consequences.

Sovereignty is also practical: a nation is not sovereign if it cannot fuel itself, power itself or defend itself. That is why the platform pairs the foreign-influence work with energy and fuel security and an independent defence. Decisions made in Australia, for Australians, by a nation that can stand on its own — under its own law.

The Sovereign Citizen Movement vs Sovereign Australia