In Australia, the massive manhunt continues for suspected cop killer Dezi Freeman in rural Victoria.
Officers had gone to his remote property in Porepunkah with a search warrant – but were met with gunfire. Two officers died at the scene.
Hundreds of officers are looking for the so-called “sovereign citizen” with a hatred of authority. Police have also announced a $1 million reward for information leading to his arrest.
A former magistrate apparently issued a stark warning just weeks before the shooting about the sovereign citizen movement in the country.
He had told Four Corners that “governments are underestimating the reach and threats of these movements”.
University of Otago associate professor Stephen Young told The Front Page it’s hard to define what a sovereign citizen is, but they generally distrust the state and claim to follow a separate “true law”, which researchers describe as “pseudo law”.
“There’s an intelligence report and a police report that says there are a dozen groups in New Zealand and maybe 1200 people, but we don’t know. That could be a huge underrepresentation, probably, considering how much we’re seeing this pop up, but we don’t know exactly how many people are out there.
“Police even mentioned that at some point, it’s likely there’s going to be some sort of unknown violence that occurs from these people. We just don’t know when it’s going to arise, or how,” he said.
In the US, the FBI has labelled sovereign citizens a “domestic terrorism threat”. Young said that might be a bit extreme.
“The United States has quite a few extremists ... Research by Dr Christine Sarteschi has noted 600 events of violence by sovereign citizens over the last 20 or 30 years.
“I will say there already are indications that the government has responded to serious threats. They made a list of people that they thought could be sovereign citizens, and I think they’ve revoked gun licenses from 60 or so of them,” he said.
Young said, thankfully, there have been many fewer violent incidents here than in the US.
“But, there are some threats that arise in the New Zealand context. The biggest one and perhaps the most problematic is that they file lots of paperwork. They’re quite litigious, and they’ll appeal anything, including rates, payments and rate increases.
“It’s fine for people to dispute things and to use legal processes, but if they’re invoking legal conspiracies or archaic and irrelevant legal materials to do this, it’s a waste of time.
“If local councils, government actors, and courts have to spend resources responding to these requests or to these problems, that means they’re not spending money on public needs, which are really important. It means that we, people who are complying, are actually paying for these conspiracies down the line, and this is a problem,” he said.
Experts in Australia believe the clear turning point there was the “Convoy to Canberra” in 2022, which became the largest protest on Parliament steps ever. In attendance were anti-vaxxers, conspiracy theorists and activists protesting the Government’s Covid restrictions.
New Zealand saw its own Parliament protest – an anti-lockdown, anti-mandate occupation, which, after 24 days, ended when police intervened.
Young said the Covid pandemic brought together “disparate actors” who might otherwise have remained isolated, and New Zealand was not immune.
“Typically, whenever there is a societal crisis, people wanna explain it in some way. Covid was particularly impactful because it combined a bunch of things that people don’t like. Doctor and medical intervention, telling people they need to get shots, having mandates about this, that really got under people’s skin.
“Unfortunately, many people found pseudo law and these sovereign citizen ideas, and that’s why we think there has been such a growth in this movement since Covid. It’s unfortunate, but I think it’s here to stay now,” he said.
Listen to the full episode to hear more about how we should deal with these so-called ‘sovereign citizens’.
The Front Page is a daily news podcast from the New Zealand Herald, available to listen to every weekday from 5am. The podcast is presented by Chelsea Daniels, an Auckland-based journalist with a background in world news and crime/justice reporting who joined NZME in 2016.
You can follow the podcast at iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.