The Murrawarri Republic is a

micronation A micronation is a political entity whose members claim that they belong to an independent nation or sovereign state, but which lacks legal recognition by world governments or major international organizations. Micronations are classified se ...

that declared its independence from

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

in 2013, claiming territory straddling the border of the states of

New South Wales ) , nickname = , image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , es ...

and

Queensland ) , nickname = Sunshine State , image_map = Queensland in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Queensland in Australia , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , established_ ...

within Australia. The territory is the traditional homeland of the

Murrawarri The Muruwari, also spelt Murawari, Murawarri, Murrawarri and other variants, are an Aboriginal Australian people of the state of New South Wales and the southwestern area of Queensland. Language A monograph on and a dictionary of Muruwari have ...

people, an Aboriginal people, but the population now comprises mostly non-Indigenous

Australians Australians, colloquially known as Aussies, are the citizens, nationals and individuals associated with the country of Australia. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or ethno-cultural. For most Australians, several (or all) ...

. The

Government of Australia The Australian Government, also known as the Commonwealth Government, is the national government of Australia, a federalism, federal parliamentary system, parliamentary constitutional monarchy. Like other Westminster system, Westminster-sty ...

has not acknowledged the declaration of independence, and their independence has been wholly unrecognised.

Declaration of the Continuance of the State of Murrawarri Nation

On 30 March 2013, the Murrawarri Republic released a declaration announcing its independence. The Peoples Council of the Murrawarri gave the Queen of England 'sic''(

Elizabeth II Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary; 21 April 1926 – 8 September 2022) was Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms from 6 February 1952 until her death in 2022. She was queen regnant of 32 sovereign states during ...

), the

Prime Minister of Australia The prime minister of Australia is the head of government of the Commonwealth of Australia. The prime minister heads the executive branch of the Australian Government, federal government of Australia and is also accountable to Parliament of A ...

(

Julia Gillard Julia Eileen Gillard (born 29 September 1961) is an Australian former politician who served as the 27th prime minister of Australia from 2010 to 2013, holding office as leader of the Australian Labor Party (ALP). She is the first and only ...

), as well as the Premiers of

(

Campbell Newman Campbell Kevin Thomas Newman (born 12 August 1963) is a former Australian politician who served as the 38th Premier of Queensland from 26 March 2012 to 14 February 2015. He served as the member for Ashgrove in the Legislative Assembly of Quee ...

) and

(

Barry O'Farrell Barry Robert O'Farrell (born 24 May 1959) is a former Australian politician who has been Australia's High Commissioner to India and non-resident Ambassador to Bhutan since May 2020. O'Farrell was the 43rd Premier of New South Wales and Minis ...

) 21 days to respond to the declaration. The specific requests made to Queen Elizabeth II were: * Treaty documents between the Murrawarri Nation and the Crown of Great Britain outlining the conditions of such a treaty, * A Deed of Cession document that show the Murrawarri Nation has ceded Sovereignty, Dominion and Ultimate (Radical) to the Crown of Great Britain, or * Documents showing a declaration of war against the Murrawarri Nation and its people by the Crown of Great Britain. The deadline expired on 8 May 2013, with the Crown failing to give a response. The Council interpreted their failure to produce the requested documents to be affirmation by the Crown of "the Murrawarri Republic to be a continued Free and Independent State, in line with International law and covenants". On 12 May 2013, the Murrawarri people took their sovereignty campaign to the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...

, asking that they be recognized as the world's newest country. On 13 May 2013, the Murrawarri Republic established a Ministry of Defence. The Declaration of Continued Independence, states that there shall be a referendum for the establishment of the elected not later than 1 April 2014 and that until such a referendum the People's Council shall act as the governing body. On 30 May 2013,''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...

'' reported that Attorney-General’s Department of the Australian Government had not replied because there was no legal basis for a reply, a view backed by

George Newhouse George Newhouse is an Australian human rights lawyer and a former local councillor. He is the principal solicitor of the National Justice Project, a human rights and social justice legal service, and currently an Adjunct Professor of Law at Ma ...

, a Sydney-based human-rights lawyer known for his work with

indigenous Australians Indigenous Australians or Australian First Nations are people with familial heritage from, and membership in, the ethnic groups that lived in Australia before British colonisation. They consist of two distinct groups: the Aboriginal peoples ...

Geography

The Murrawarri Republic website identifies its territory as being roughly triangular in shape, traversing the

border with its easterly apex close to the two state borders about 600 km from the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...

, on the landward side of the

Great Dividing Range The Great Dividing Range, also known as the East Australian Cordillera or the Eastern Highlands, is a cordillera system in eastern Australia consisting of an expansive collection of mountain ranges, plateaus and rolling hills, that runs rough ...

, its north-westerly apex close to the Queensland town of

Cunnamulla Cunnamulla () is a town and a locality in the Shire of Paroo, Queensland, Australia. It is south of Charleville, and approximately west of the state capital, Brisbane. In the , Cunnamulla had a population of 1,140 people. Geography Cunnamulla ...

and its southwesterly apex at the confluence of the Darling and

Warrego River The Warrego River is an intermittent river that is part of the Darling River, Darling catchment within the Murray–Darling basin, which is located in South West Queensland and in the Orana (New South Wales), Orana region of New South Wales, Aus ...

s. It is roughly 200 km from east to west and about 250 km from north to south. The republic’s website quotes its area as being , but this area is inconsistent with measurements taken from the map.The area of quoted on the website does not correspond with the coordinates cited in the same website. If the territory claimed is approximated by a triangle with its northerly apex at , its southerly apex at (quoted in the website) and its easterly coordinate at (estimated using A55 and A71 highways as reference points), the triangle will have sides of 263.3 km, 186.5 km and 254.6 km respectively. Using

Heron's formula In geometry, Heron's formula (or Hero's formula) gives the area of a triangle in terms of the three side lengths , , . If s = \tfrac12(a + b + c) is the semiperimeter of the triangle, the area is, :A = \sqrt. It is named after first-century ...

, such a triangle has an area of about , significantly less than the quoted area of the territory—namely . The inconsistency between Murrawarri's land claim and the claimed land's true area has been specifically examined in a study published by ''Indigenous Policy Journal'', which confirms that Murrawarri's true area is about , less than one third of what is officially claimed. The study also concluded that "the proclamation of the Republic of Murrawarri is currently exerting a significant influence over similar contexts in Australia", thus reinforcing the debate on Aboriginal sovereignty. The

First Peoples Worldwide First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number 1 (number), one (#1). First or 1st may also refer to: *World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement Arts and media Music * 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, D ...

website quotes the population of the Murrawarri republic as being approximately 4000, but this value is inconsistent with census figures.Maps published by the Murrawarri Provisional Council of State show that most, if not all, of the republic lies within the

Shire of Paroo The Shire of Paroo is a local government area in South West Queensland, Australia. The administrative centre is the town of Cunnamulla. The Paroo Shire covers an area of . In the , the Shire had a population of 1,679. The region incorporates t ...

(Queensland) or

Bourke Shire Bourke Shire is a Local government in Australia, local government area in the Orana, New South Wales, Orana region of New South Wales, Australia. The Shire is located adjacent to the Darling River, which is known as the Barwon River (New South W ...

(New South Wales): the 2010 census quotes the Shire of Paroo as having a population of 1951 and Bourke Shire as having a population of 2868. Of this total of 4819, 3362 (or 69.76%) of the population of these shires are shown as living in the towns of Bourke and

, which lie outside the republic, leaving a population of about 1450. The dominant vegetation and climate, based on the

Köppen classification Köppen is a German surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Bernd Köppen (born 1951), German pianist and composer * Carl Köppen (1833-1907), German military advisor in Meiji era Japan * Edlef Köppen (1893–1939), German author an ...

, is described as hot, persistently dry

grassland A grassland is an area where the vegetation is dominated by grasses (Poaceae). However, sedge (Cyperaceae) and rush (Juncaceae) can also be found along with variable proportions of legumes, like clover, and other herbs. Grasslands occur natur ...

. The average maximum and minimum temperatures in January are about 36°C and 18°C respectively and in July are 22°C and 5°C respectively. The rainfall is approximately 360 mm per annum, with more rain falling in the summer than in the winter.These figures are the averages of the figures for Bourke and

. The

Mitchell Highway Mitchell Highway is an outback state highway located in the Central West Queensland, central and South West Queensland, south western regions of Queensland and the North West Slopes, northern and Central West, New South Wales, central western ...

(A71) traverses the territory from north to south.

Provisional Council of State

The Provisional Council of State is the governing body of the Murrawarri Republic. The first meeting of the People's Council was held at Weilmoringle on 13 July 2013, where the meeting passed a unanimous resolution to establish the Provisional Council of State. It is made up of 11 members who are Fred Hooper, Kevin Hooper, Phyllis Cubby, Evelyn Barker, Sam Jefferies, Desmond Jones, Phillip Sullivan, Julie Johnston, Gloria Johnston, Sharni Hooper, and Alison Salt. Fred Hooper is the current chairman of the Provisional Council of State.

Flag meaning

The brown represents the land, and the light blue represents the sky, where Murrawarri spirits reside until their return on the falling star, as well as the water and the people. Together, the colors represent mother earth. The white star in the upper left corner has eight points which represent the eight clan groups of the Murrawarri Republic.

Notes

References

External links

Official proposed country websiteOfficial people's website
{{micronations Indigenous Australian politics States and territories established in 2013 Micronations in Australia Aboriginal micronations