Principality of Hutt River, WA

Near 600klm north of Perth in WA, in a quiet valley, sits Australia’s only Principality. The  75sq klm, former sheep station and wheat farm of Hutt River, sits just off the coastline of SW WA and is Australia’s only Independent Sovereign State and micro-nation. In a  secession from the Government of Aus’ in 1970 the Principality was born in the controversy of a new Province. The secession was inspired because of wheat quota’s, unfairly distributed by the WA Government of the day, that would have proven a great hardship for the station, destroying the livelihood of a collection of Aussie families. Appeals against the fractional wheat quota were unsuccessful, so Prince Leonard seceded, and in doing so he created an independent province to survive. Survive he did, and what was to become the only Principality or micro nation within the borders of Australia. The Province, now a Principality was born.