Victorian local governments are bracing for fringe and anti-lockdown groups – including some linked to disruptive and violent protests in council meetings last year – to run candidates in this year’s council elections.
David Clark, president of the Municipal Association of Victoria which oversees the state’s 79 councils, said problematic candidates – including those with anti-government sentiments or conspiracy views – were mobilising to enter local government.
The “freedom movement”, which held large anti-government protests during 2020 and 2021, has turned its attentions to local councils.Credit: Eddie Jim
“It’s going to be a much different council election to anything we’ve ever seen before,” Clark said.
“The stakes are far higher. There is absolutely no doubt some of these groups see an opportunity.
“They had a really hard crack at federal and state elections and were spectacularly unsuccessful, but it is a lot easier to get elected into local government.”
My Place – a loosely organised movement that started in Melbourne – boasts almost 200 different groups, mostly in Victoria and New South Wales, according to its website. With no clear leadership structure, they mostly operate independently via private social media pages.
Individual groups under the My Place umbrella this month started hosting online meetings urging members to prepare to contest Victoria’s local government elections in October – sparking concerns among extremism experts.
Members of My Place espouse various controversial ideas, including a misleading sovereign citizen theory of legal rights known as “pseudolaw” that argues taxes, land titles and even governments are illegitimate.
Sovereign citizens believe a “straw man” is created when a person is born, which is their legal entity and separate from their actual self, and argue society’s laws do not apply to them. Anti-vaccination and “freedom” movement ideas popularised during COVID-19 lockdowns are also prevalent among members.
Dr Josh Roose, an expert in extremism at Deakin University, said fringe groups including My Place had seized upon the resentment and fear in the community during Victoria’s long COVID-19 lockdowns.
Now, they were preparing to enter the most accessible level of government in a bid to undermine the system from within, he said.
“My Place is certainly gearing up for a run and they are particularly concerning for a number of reasons,” Roose said.
Councils have been thrust into the front line of broader debates including the Israel-Gaza conflict, cancellation of Australia Day events, transgender rights and neo-Nazi rallies.
Clark said about 30 Victorian councils had faced protests from members of the My Place network.
The City of Casey in Melbourne’s south-east was forced to cancel a series of drag queen events after a threat assessment by Victoria Police when the council was targeted by people linked to My Place, while similar events were canned or moved online by Monash City Council and the City of Boroondara.
Yarra Ranges Council had to call the police and deploy security guards last year after more than 100 protesters, believed to be from the Yarra Valley My Place group, hijacked a meeting, espousing 5G conspiracies, prompting the council to close its public gallery indefinitely.
“There are some real tightropes we’ve got to walk this year and if we get it wrong, it’s going to make our lives really hard and empower some of those groups,” Clark said.
Last year, Roose led a confidential meeting of more than 100 council representatives and police, convened to work out how to respond after a dramatic escalation of “threatening and unpredictable” behaviour unfolding in protests at council meetings across the state.
While My Place has framed itself as a movement of noble attributes such as truth, human rights and integrity, Roose said a deeper look into its ideology exposed conspiracy views.
“They start talking about straw men, not paying tax, not registering vehicles or paying fines, all of which have direct concern with local council,” he said.
Roose said several candidates backed by an anti-vaccine, conspiracy theory-promoting group had been elected to councils in Western Australia last year.
He said some groups had thousands of members and appealed to not only those on the fringes with their “benign” messaging, but also increasingly middle-aged white-collar men and women.
“We have a cost-of-living crisis that’s been prolonged, rapidly increasing interest rates that don’t seem to be going down any time soon, and in Victoria, we’ve had the trauma, quite frankly, of two years of lockdowns,” he said.
“There has been a perfect storm of events in the last few years, creating room for these movements to quickly grow and increasing the chances that some members will get themselves elected to councils.”
Separate to My Place, other small politically active groups that espouse personal freedom over government power have also started posting callouts for candidates for the coming local government elections.
“Many of these movements are inherently undemocratic and hold anti-democracy views that see governments as an imposition, that must be defeated,” Roose said.
“The narrative is the government has forgotten about us, crushed us, stepped too far and taken our rights.”
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