Former senator Rod Culleton loses court bid after citing non-existent case

Former senator and Great Australia Party candidate Rod Culleton has been referred to the Australian Federal Police multiple times by the AEC for allegedly failing to declare a bankruptcy status in nominations for federal elections.

All the talk of Barnaby Joyce’s defection to Pauline Hanson’s One Nation has given Margin Call pause to wonder about the fate of Hanson’s other stunningly successful recruitment efforts over the years.

And lo! In the Supreme Court of Western Australia, up pops a mention of never-was WA senator Rod Culleton, elected on One Nation’s ticket in 2016 - and then rubbed out in quick order by the fact he was a bankrupt.

Culleton is a poster child for the sovereign citizen movement these days, the pestilence afflicting courts across the country - which often starts with a bank repossessing someone’s property, and usually ends with endless recitations of either maritime law or the Magna Carta in front of some undeserving judge.

Enter Culleton, who appears to still be fighting the endless war over the event that put him into bankruptcy in the first place - the repossession of his farm in WA by an arm of the ANZ bank back in 2014.

The courts have long-since ended any legitimate challenges to the bank’s repossession of the property, but still Culleton persists.

His latest attempt ended much the same way. Foiled at blocking the repossession, Culleton has taken to making life difficult for the property’s new owners, who bought the farm fair and square on the market earlier this year.

This week, WA Supreme Court Justice Terence Palmer brought another of those efforts to a close.

Culleton had been trying to put a caveat on the property to prevent its sale, arguing that its original confiscation by the banks was fraudulent - an idea already thoroughly ventilated and dismissed by the courts.

Justice Palmer, also, dismissed the argument.

Partly on the grounds the courts had already dealt with the matter, but also because the case law cited by Culleton in support of his argument does not, in fact, exist.

“First, to the extent that Mr Culleton’s argument that there is a serious question to be tried relies upon the decision of Permanent Custodians Ltd v Upjohn (2007) 33 WAR 425, there is no such case,” Justice Palmer said in his decision.

“Secondly, while the decision in Aliraja v Susan Dukes & Commissioner of Titles does exist, it seems to have little relevance to the claim that Mr Culleton makes.

“Thirdly, the evidence that Mr Culleton relies upon to establish fraud does not appear to extend much further than a series of bald assertions he makes in his affidavit that are, to some extent, contradicted by the documents attached to his affidavit.”

Enough said.

Mind you, as ridiculous as the legal arguments might be, there’s a serious undercurrent to it.

A previous attempt by Culleton to reclaim the property ended in a tense standoff with police, after he turned up with 50 mates to try to turf out the legitimate owners in 2023.