Official Information Request - sovereign citizens

Sent: Friday, 14 April 2023 3:08 pm
Subject: Information request - sovereign citizens

I refer to your email of 30 March 2023 requesting correspondence received from “sovereign citizens” since January 2020, or:

• How many ratepayers have refused to pay rates or abide by other council processes based on sovereign citizen ideals? What action have you taken regarding this?
• Include any threats to staff or elected members from sovereign citizens. How many of these have been referred to police?

Council does not file correspondence from ratepayers claiming to be “sovereign citizens” in a way that can be accessed using the keywords of “sovereign citizens”. Any correspondence is filed under the ratepayer’s name or property address. As such Council cannot provide copies of the correspondence without the name of the ratepayer.

Council can confirm, however, that it has received approximately six letters since January 2020 from ratepayers claiming to be “sovereign citizens”. These ratepayers are sent letters acknowledging receipt of their correspondence and reminding them of their obligations under the Local Government (Rating) Act 2002 regarding rates on their properties.

Any non-payment of rates, whether they claim to be “sovereign citizens” or not, goes through the normal Council processes to recover the unpaid rates.

No threats have been made to staff or elected members from “sovereign citizens”.