This article critically investigates the infiltration of Aboriginal resistance spaces by far-right actors, sovereign citizens, and settler conspiritualists in post-pandemic Australia. Through events like the 2021 Muckadda Camp protest and the arson attacks on Old Parliament House, these actors have attempted to simulate Aboriginal sovereignty by appropriating Indigenous symbolism, language, and ceremony for their own anti-government and pseudo-legal agendas (Cooke, 2025).
The Muckadda Camp event was framed by its perpetrators as a sovereign Aboriginal uprising. However, evidence shows it was largely orchestrated by white sovereign citizens and conspiracists, including individuals such as Danny Searle, with limited or fabricated Indigenous involvement (ABC News, 2023; Hassan, 2022). These actors misused cultural practices, such as burning ceremonies and ochre markings, to present a false spectacle of Indigenous resistance. Indigenous leaders including Aunty Matilda House and Ghillar Michael Anderson swiftly condemned the event, clarifying that it had no connection to lawful Aboriginal governance (Walker, 2023).
This co-option exemplifies what scholars have termed “settler conspirituality” (Carlson & Day, 2023; Ward & Voas, 2011): the fusion of New Age spiritualism, conspiratorial populism, and colonial entitlement. In this context, non-Indigenous actors mimic Aboriginal identity, invoke Lore, and assert custodianship without kinship, Country ties, or cultural legitimacy. Their actions simulate sovereignty, not in solidarity but as settler counter-claims to land, law, and identity (Moreton-Robinson, 2015; Deloria, 1998).
The consequences are both symbolic and material. Aboriginal Elders and Land Councils are increasingly forced to defend their authority in the face of loud, fraudulent claimants, often using pseudo-legal language. This creates confusion in native title processes, undermines sacred governance structures, and causes significant emotional harm to legitimate cultural custodians (Taplin, Holland, & Billing, 2023; Aird & Ardill, 2023).
Media complicity has further legitimised these false claims. Settler-led networks like the Coast Environmental Alliance (CEA), My Place Central Coast, and their offshoots have used spiritualised environmental rhetoric and claims of sacred sites to obstruct lawful Aboriginal-led developments, particularly those spearheaded by the Darkinjung Local Aboriginal Land Council (DLALC) (Cooke, 2025). These campaigns invert the language of decolonisation to reassert settler entitlement.
This form of settler mimicry is not benign misrecognition; it is a strategic appropriation that replaces Aboriginal voices with performative simulations. Drawing on the concept of the white possessive (Moreton-Robinson, 2015), the article argues that these actions constitute a “dual violence”: the erasure of Aboriginal presence and the projection of a false Aboriginality to justify settler agendas.
In response, Cooke (2025) calls for clear boundary-setting between authentic Aboriginal sovereignty and settler mimicry. Elders and organisations have proposed protocols for verifying cultural legitimacy and safeguarding sacred spaces from impostors. Institutions and media must stop platforming unverified claims and should uphold relational accountability. Universities, councils, and journalists bear a particular responsibility to resist the narrative laundering of cultural fraud.
The article concludes that defending Aboriginal sovereignty requires more than critique; it demands active cultural governance, institutional discipline, and collective resistance. Far-right attempts to hijack Indigenous resistance are not only culturally violent but threaten to derail climate justice, land restitution, and community-led development. As the Aboriginal Tent Embassy approaches its sixth decade, it remains not a platform for settler performance but a symbol of unceded, continuous, and lawful Aboriginal resistance.
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