Herald Sun coverage of the protest and sovereign citizen Darren Bergwerf
Herald Sun coverage of the protest and sovereign citizen Darren Bergwerf (Image: Supplied, Facebook/Darren 4 Dunkley)

There was routine media coverage this week of an unremarkable protest against a Melbourne local council’s plans to build a childcare centre on part of a reserve. 

But a Herald Sun article contained a clue that the backlash is part of a bigger story about the campaigning efforts of a fringe movement inspired by an anti-government ideology. 

The caption on a picture of the “furious” residents with the campaign’s ringleaders posing at the front identified an organiser, Darren Bergwerf, as “mayor of the people’s council”.

The title — subsequently removed by the Herald Sun — is a reference to Bergwerf’s “shadow council”, the Frankston People’s Council. The group is based on sovereign citizen beliefs, an anti-government ideology that incorrectly claims government bodies such as local councils are illegitimate and that citizens are exempt from their laws and powers. It’s an ideology that’s cross-pollinated among many conspiracy communities and, in some cases, has been a belief of people who’ve committed acts of violence.

The Long Street reserve protest was organised out of a Facebook group called My Place Frankston. It’s one of dozens of similarly named “My Place” groups for different suburbs around Australia founded by Bergwerf.

At first glance, the group appears to be a typical local neighbourhood online space with nearly 5000 members, the description of the group contains dog-whistles to the founder’s conspiratorial beliefs. 

Prospective members are told that it’s a group for “like-minded people” to “support one another” for “pro-choice” organising — once a slogan for bodily autonomy that has been appropriated to by the anti-vaccine community. A poll about the group’s concerns created by one of its administrators lists two common subjects of conspiracy theories, 5G mobile towers and Safe Cities, alongside the Long Street reserve as options.

The ultimate objective of these My Place groups, according to members, is to create parallel institutions so that members may exist outside the confines of Australian mainstream society. 

Bergwerf has a public history of espousing fringe and conspiratorial beliefs. In addition to the Frankston People’s Council, he also runs another sovereign citizen group called People’s Trust Victoria. The former promises to provide “the constitutionally correct system of local government” for Frankston while the latter offers guidelines which falsely claim can help people avoid paying land tax, rates and fines. 

He baselessly claimed there was election fraud in the federal 2022 election and declared himself the winner of the seat of Dunkley before the poll. His independent candidacy was endorsed by the far-right unregistered party AustraliaOne, whose leader, Riccardo Bosi, is an anti-vaccine, COVID-19 denialist who has threatened to hang journalists.

Bergwerf has woven his sovereign citizen ideology into the efforts to influence council decisions by organising group members to attend the real council’s meetings and protest. He has wrongly claimed that Frankston City Council is “fraudulently” acting as a government body when it is instead a corporation — a common anti-government sovereign citizen belief. The group’s organisers openly discuss using the protest to recruit for the Frankston People’s Council in the Facebook group.

Bergwerf and the group have even found support from within the council. Deputy mayor Liam Hughes, whose election last year aged 20 made him Frankston’s youngest deputy mayor, appeared at the protest. Hughes told Crikey he was aware and wasn’t concerned about Bergwerf’s views and the Frankston People’s Council — despite the group fundamentally believing that his position is illegitimate.

“Darren’s ideologies have nothing to with this current matter at hand,” he said. “The issue is about an environmental haven potentially being concreted over. Everyone who attended the event wants that reserve to be protected.”

A key part of the group’s strategy has been to gain media attention to promote their organisation. Bergwerf wrote on Facebook about joining the Long Street reserve meeting: “There will be a mainstream media there and this would be a golden opportunity to show the strength of our community together.”

After the Herald Sun article was published, the group’s members bragged about scoring interviews on 3AW, ABC Radio Melbourne and speaking to a Nine reporter under the auspices of protesting the Long Street reserve development. 

One member responded with glee: “Wow, that’s awesome!.. I hope people will start waking up to see what’s going on…”

Neither Bergwerf nor My Place Frankston responded to questions from Crikey.