A MEMBER of a religious sect wanting to secede from Queensland is headed for a showdown with an outback council after a court today ordered him off the land where he has been living.
Christopher Lawrence Smith said he was prepared to be locked up as a religious prisoner of the state in his fight against Millmerran Shire Council, in Queensland's southeast, for residency of Sundowner Provence.
"We are going to lodge an appeal and keep fighting," Mr Smith said outside court.
The 50-year-old former drive-in movie operator has been given 28 days to vacate the Wattle Ridge property where he has lived on and off for 14 years.
In a judgment handed down in Brisbane's Planning and Environment Court today, Justice Thomas Quirk found Mr Smith was an illegal occupant.
He has been given until January 18 to vacate the shack he shares with his nine-year-old daughter Patrica or lodge an appeal against the decision.
Mr Smith said he refused to accept the council had jurisdiction to kick him out.
He's been accused of living on the site without a temporary permit and undertaking development without a building permit.
But Mr Smith has mounted a defence on the grounds the property was a separate state.
He said the land, which is also occupied by a self-sufficient couple in their 60s, belongs to the Independent Sovereign State of Australia of which he is a member.
Mr Smith said the religious sect, which has more than 1500 members Australia-wide and a separate system of money and driver's licences, had seceded from Queensland.