US market watchdog documents not 'evidence' that 'Australia is a corporation'
- Published on February 14, 2024 at 04:24
- 3 min read
- By Joseph OLBRYCHT PALMER, AFP Australia
Copyright © AFP 2017-2025. Any commercial use of this content requires a subscription. Click here to find out more.
"CORPORATE GOVERNMENT IS REAL," reads a Facebook post from February 3, 2024.
The post goes on to allege Australia has "been sold out" by the country's major political parties and is "now dictated to by the United Nations."
Offered as evidence for the claim is an image of filings by the Commonwealth of Australia with the US Security Exchange Commission (archived link).
"Australia is a private for-profit corporation registered with US SEC," reads another post on X from August 10, 2023, suggesting other commission filings are evidence that support the false claim, which has circulated on social media for years.
Promoted by subscribers to Australia's sovereign citizen movements -- or people who believe they do not have to answer to any government or law -- the claim often pushes misleading narratives that Australia's government is illegitimate (archived link).
But the posts shared documents that mean the Australian government can trade securities in the US and are "in no way a threat to Australia’s sovereignty", an independent expert has told AFP.
Official documents
The images in the posts show part of an annual report from 2010 and filings for the Commonwealth of Australia available on the SEC's website here and here (archived links here, here and here).
This does not mean Australia, or its government, is a corporation, political economy expert Ashani Amarasinghe told AFP in a February 7 email (archived link).
"All governments issue government securities to raise funds to finance their operations. Australia is no exception," she said.
The image in the post shows an 18-K form that discloses how Australia can pay its debts (archived link).
"If Australia wants to attract US investors for its international government securities, Australia is required to register in the US, with the SEC, as per the Securities Act of 1933," Amarasinghe said (archived link).
"This rule applies to all non-US sovereign governments wishing to offer and sell debt securities in the US."
For example, Indonesia, the European Investment Bank, and the Australian state of New South Wales have also filed 18-K forms (archived links here, here and here).
"The idea is essentially to gather all relevant information that can affect the foreign issuer’s solvency/debt servicing capacity," Amarasinghe said.
No 'threat' to Australia's sovereignty
Australia became a self-governing federation on January 1, 1901, after the British Parliament passed the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act (archived link).
A democratic monarchy, it has a constitution and is a member of numerous multilateral international bodies, including the United Nations (archived links here and here).
Registering with the SEC "is only a form of necessary compliance with US laws on debt securities," Amarasinghe said.
"It does not create a corporation. It is in no way a threat to Australia’s sovereignty."
Is there content that you would like AFP to fact-check? Get in touch.
Contact us