The threat remains at Old Parliament House building

The fire at Old Parliament House in Canberra. Picture: Supplied

There has been a lot of confused reporting on the shameful desecration of the old Parliament building, its front doors set alight on December 30.

The building is a powerful symbol of this nation’s democratic institutions. Somewhat lost in the sorrow of the damage the fire caused is the fact there were people in the building at the time whose lives appear to have been held cheap.

On Monday, a 30-year-old Victorian man was charged with arson. He was rearrested yesterday for breach of his bail conditions and remanded in custody. Police will allege the man deliberately lit the blaze during the protest, with court documents referring to the man holding, “sovereign citizen style beliefs”.

The damage done to Old Parliament House. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

The Australian can reveal an earlier plan was to seize the building and establish an alternate government. A non-indigenous author linked to the sovereign citizen movement in Australia, Danny Searle boasted on an Instagram video dated December 13 that he had prepared a plan which involved 100,000 protesters storming the old Parliament building, now the Museum of Australian Democracy, in the dead of night on a fixed date in early January.

In the video, Searle claimed he had attended a virtual or Zoom meeting in October with as many as 30 indigenous and non-indigenous sovcits, where his plan was put and agreed to by the other participants. In the December 13 video, Searle claims the plan was scrutinised by “judicial experts” within the group and he had consulted military friends who gave his “battle plan” a “97.8 per cent chance of success.”

That plan was the subject of discussion on social media by other prominent sovcits and members of Australia’s freedom movement before protesters began assembling in Canberra later in December.

Searle claimed the plan went awry when an indigenous woman, Cindy Roberts took charge of the protest. Roberts was not present during the Zoom meeting in November. In a video shot at the time of the fire on December 30, Roberts is present at the old Parliament House and then later is shown driving around Capital Circuit cheering as the building burns in the background.

Roberts, who refers to herself as ‘Aunty Cindy’ left the protest some days ago. She continues to make social media posts.

Other protesters remain in the area despite being asked to leave by elders. In a video released on Instagram yesterday, several remaining protesters were seen threatening Ngunnawal elders and women. Canberra is Ngunnawal country.

It is an incredibly confusing situation for onlookers. Australian sovcits, indigenous or non-indigenous are the oddest of activists. In the US, the sovereign citizen movement is listed by the FBI as a domestic terror organisation, essentially due to the threat they pose law enforcement. In Australia, they’re a mixed bag of contrary philosophies based on mistaken and crude misrepresentations of laws, often irrelevant or revoked.

Sovcits have no interest in the left/right dichotomy. The oft-repeated cover all description of them as right-wing extremists is neither helpful nor accurate. One might place them on the extreme left with anarchists but that is not quite right either. They don’t really belong anywhere on the political spectrum.

Due to the complexities of sovereignty in Australia for indigenous Australians, a number have fallen to the movement with the temptation that sovereign citizenry offers easy answers to complex legal, social and cultural problems.

In May, the alleged arsonist of the old Parliament building was organising a crowdfund for Djab Wurrung Sovereign Tribal Government.

We have seen indigenous sovcits active in Northern Territory spreading misinformation about vaccine coercion that found a global reach. There were claims made of the ADF holding people down and vaccinating them or locking them up in quarantine. It’s all nonsense but due to what’s loosely called cultural sensitivities, these falsehoods have found their way into the world’s media expressed as fact.

What is both most absurd and most telling is that the organisers and influencers routinely film themselves while crimes are being committed or contemplated. Some of the protesters at the Old Parliament filmed the lead up to the fire being lit and then afterwards when the fire had taken hold in an obvious contradiction to their claims the fire was set by police.

More disturbingly, influencers who have created this mad protest use the people on the ground as cannon fodder for arrests, appearances before courts and the possibility of long terms of imprisonment.

In a twist of irony, the old Parliament building, now the Museum of Australian Democracy, contains a well catalogued historical archive of primary materials associated with the establishment of the original Tent Embassy. There remains a threat of the destruction of that history and in a broader sense, the nation’s history. This is one of our nation’s sacred sites.

The custodians of the original Tent Embassy have issued a statement condemning the fire and the protest.

The old Parliament House has been cordoned off by ACT Policing, but a threat remains with the indigenous sovcit protesters increasingly in conflict with the Ngunnawal people and other indigenous Australians who plan to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the original Tent Embassy on January 26.