{"id":663017,"date":"2026-05-11T02:56:20","date_gmt":"2026-05-11T02:56:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/663017\/"},"modified":"2026-05-11T02:56:20","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T02:56:20","slug":"australian-flags-flown-upside-down-as-protesters-try-to-make-victoria-great-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/663017\/","title":{"rendered":"Australian flags flown upside-down as protesters try to ‘make Victoria great again’"},"content":{"rendered":"

When you drive the Murray Valley Highway, as it stretches east-to-west along the Victoria-NSW border, Australian flags hung upside-down feature prominently on front lawns and in paddocks.<\/p>\n

For some of the farmers who work this land, it is their way of showing their disapproval of the state and federal governments.<\/p>\n

\"man<\/p>\n

Doug Fehring is flying an upside-down flag at his property in northern Victoria in protest against government policies. (ABC News: Tyrone Dalton)<\/p>\n

Doug Fehring is one of those Victorians flying an upside-down Australian flag outside his Leitchville property.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He said he was fed up with “a lack of political will” to listen and respond to what Australians think about water management, cost of living, renewable energy projects, and food and fuel security.<\/p>\n

“For all the submissions, meetings and protests we’ve done, nothing’s happened, no changes, and I’m a bit tired of it,” Mr Fehring said.<\/p>\n

“They’re not listening, and we’ve got further buybacks being hijacked by the Greens, the Liberals are falling apart, the Coalition can’t control itself either \u2014 it’s just a shambles really, and we’ve got nowhere to go.<\/p>\n

“And that’s why people are going to One Nation, really.”<\/p>\n

Former farmer Lloyd Polkinghorne lives in Koondrook, and he’s noticed a growing number of upside-down flags displayed on properties in the region.<\/p>\n

\"Bearded<\/p>\n

Irrigator Lloyd Polkinghorne has become dissatisfied with politicians. (Supplied: Lloyd Polkinghorne\u00a0)<\/p>\n

He said the international sign of maritime distress is emerging for “several reasons”.<\/p>\n

“One of the big ones that’s facing our farmers is water buybacks… [but] we’ve also got power lines… and then we’ve got the burden of fuel and fertiliser pricing,” Mr Polkinghorne said.<\/p>\n

It’s not the first time rural Victorians have used flags to show their discontent with governments.<\/p>\n

In 2020, farmers in northern Victoria flew the Eureka flag, historically used by miners to rebel against gold mining taxes in the Victorian gold rush, to protest against water policy<\/a> and the closure of hundreds of dairy farms.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Push to One Nation<\/p>\n

Leigh, who lives in western Victoria and didn’t want to give his last name, spent 17 years in the Australian Army, before being medically discharged five years ago.<\/p>\n

He described those displaying upside-down flags as “brave”, and said the move was “fairly understandable”.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“There is a lot of distress happening in our community at the moment,” he said.<\/p>\n

“It\u2019s extremely sad to see what\u2019s happening in Victoria.<\/p>\n

“There is so much hardship at the moment, and it’s evident everywhere you go in the state, and I think it\u2019s only getting worse.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leigh said he has noticed a shift in attitudes towards One Nation in his circle as it gets tougher for regional Australians.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“When I was a kid, going back 25 to 30 years ago, Pauline Hanson was nothing but somewhat of a joke,” he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut now… I don\u2019t know any person in my circle at the moment that isn\u2019t for the whole One Nation movement”.<\/p>\n

\"upside<\/p>\n

Some rural Victorians are flying Australian flags upside down to signal their disatisfaction with government.<\/p>\n

Nigel Hicks is from Wyuna in Victoria’s Goulburn Valley and said flying flags out the front of properties was a way for time-poor farmers to protest.<\/p>\n

“You’ve got ministers and government people driving along these roads to go to some of these meetings, and it’s one way of people permanently showing where they stand,” he said.<\/p>\n

\u00a0“I think we saw that even with the sets of CFA overalls hanging on farmers’ gates [over the Victorian government’s emergency services levy].”<\/p>\n

An issue of neglect<\/p>\n

Political sociologist Associate Professor Josh Roose said the upside-down flag movement reflected a strong sense of “disempowerment” in the community.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Deakin University extremism researcher Josh Roose. (ABC News: Kyle Harley)<\/p>\n

“This is, more broadly speaking, an issue of regional Australians and their neglect over a period of decades,” Professor Roose said.<\/p>\n

“Where the infrastructure has been hired out, where people can no longer necessarily buy a house in the town they grew up in due to external investment, Airbnb\u2019s and so on… diesel is the lifeblood of our regions and even that is becoming unaffordable.”<\/p>\n

Professor Roose said the perceived disempowerment in the regions coincided with a rise in populist parties.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For the first time,\u00a0One Nation is polling above 20 per cent nationally and is ahead of the combined vote of the Liberal and National parties.<\/a><\/p>\n

He said One Nation’s framing was “certainly populist”, appealing to people’s feeling of being “neglected [and] left behind”, but he noted the party was “not particularly heavy on solutions”.<\/p>\n

Professor Roose said it coincided with a rise in the sovereign citizen movement, which similarly stemmed from a distrust in government and a sense of marginalisation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"An<\/p>\n

An upside-down national flag is historically known as a maritime distress signal. (ABC News: Warwick Long\u00a0)<\/p>\n

‘An American thing’\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ralph Kelly is a vexillologist — someone who studies flags– and is the president of Flags Australia.<\/p>\n

He said that flying a flag upside down historically meant a ship was in distress, but it had been repurposed by protest groups.<\/p>\n

“The modern use of the upside-down flag is really an American thing since the Trump MAGA movement, when many Americans [used it] in protests [and] street demonstrations,” he said.\"man<\/p>\n

Vexillologist Ralph Kelly says the upside-down flag is the international maritime sign of distress and has been claimed by protest groups unhappy with governments. (Supplied: Ralph Kelly)<\/p>\n

Mr Kelly said sovereign citizens had also claimed the red ensign flag as part of their political protest against the government.<\/p>\n

“They’re saying, ‘it’s not the government flag, we don’t support the government, so we’re not flying the government’s flag’,” he said.<\/p>\n

“And some of those sovereign citizen people are flying it upside down as an extra message of protest and disagreement with government policies.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

This sign in a paddock displays the phrase “Make Australia Great Again”.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘Getting the economy working for people’\u00a0<\/p>\n

Professor Roose said the climate in the regions could make work dangerous for government enforcement agencies, such as the police.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“We\u2019ve got to move to a point where ideally we can take the temperature out of the environment, but a big part of that is getting the economy working for people,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

“We are at a pretty important inflection point here in Australia, and there needs to be a national conversation about supporting our regions far more effectively than has been done.”<\/p>\n

But not all regional residents feel the same way as their inverted flag-flying neighbours.<\/p>\n

Michael Purcell from Acheron, north-east of Melbourne, told ABC Statewide Drive<\/a> his ex-military friends in particular found the flying of the Australian flag upside-down disrespectful.<\/p>\n

“I think there are ways and means of making a statement,” Michael said.<\/p>\n

“As far as disrespect to the Australian flag, I do have a problem with that.”<\/p>\n

Another listener, Michael from Wooragee, said he found the flags useful to identify whom he would stay away from.<\/p>\n

“I love how the village idiots now mark their location with a red ensign,” he said.<\/p>\n

“It’s very helpful to know who to avoid.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When you drive the Murray Valley Highway, as it stretches east-to-west along the Victoria-NSW border, Australian flags hung…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":663018,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,306869,25980,5635,44,60504,2647,13262,2185,58400,320202],"class_list":["post-663017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-flag","tag-farmer","tag-maga","tag-news","tag-one-nation","tag-protest","tag-regional","tag-rural","tag-sovereign-citizen","tag-upside-down-flag"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/663017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=663017"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/663017\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/663018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=663017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=663017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=663017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}