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For the past week or so a black 2001 Ford Ka has been cruising Canberra’s streets. It’s a modest, unimposing car that would, except for its distinctive number plates, elicit little attention. The black and gold plates read: “ Yidindji - YID-001 - Pursuant to Yidindji Tribal Law.” The car’s driver is Murrumu Walubara Yidindji, a man in his 40s from the country around Cairns, north Queensland, who last year decided to voluntarily “leave Australia” and live by the tribal law of his Indigenous people, the Yidindji.

For Murrumu (formerly the National Indigenous Television political journalist known as Jeremy Geia) leaving Australia almost a year ago began with a series of small practical and equally symbolic steps.

He renounced his Australian citizenship, returned his passport and Medicare card to the Australian Commonwealth, and sent his driver’s licence back to the chief minister of the Australian Capital Territory, where he then lived. Then Murrumu – who has since returned to live permanently in Yidindji country – quit his job, gave away most possessions and walked away from his bank savings and a superannuation account built up over two decades.

He had, in his words, “abandoned the Australian citizen ship”.

Now, during a visit to the national capital he has, since 2 January, been driving around in YID-001, a car that was, Murrumu says, “licensed to the sovereign Yidindji government” on the first day of the new year.

The number plates are already in use in Yidindji country. But Murrumu said he decided to release YID-001 “in Ngambri (Canberra in Walgalu, the language of the custodians of the plains upon which the national capital is imposed) for the very symbolic gesture that the head office called Parliament House of the Commonwealth of Australia is located there”.

He said:

Most Aussies are learning now that the jurisdiction known as the Commonwealth of Australia does not yet constitutionally recognise the Aboriginal tribes of the geographical land mass known as Australia. The failure to constitutionally recognise the Yidindji in the foundation legal document of the jurisdiction of the Commonwealth of Australia means that the Yidindji ... are not bound by any of the laws and statutes created by the authority of the Australian constitution.

Nonetheless, before taking YID-001 for a spin on the Tuggeranong Parkway, Murrumu and his associates did inform the police that the car licensed to the Yidiindji government would be driving on local roads.

“The Tuggeranong (police) station accepted our public notices and paperwork. But one officer told me he’s never come across this situation before,” Murrumu said.

Doubtless, the police officer was telling the truth. Murrumu’s situation is unusual, though far from unique; in the past month I’ve met other Indigenous Australians from elsewhere on the continent who are also renouncing Australian citizenship in favour of tribal law.

Some obvious practical difficulties must be overcome for those who are serious about it.

I’ve caught up with Murrumu a few times now since he quit Australia. His resolve and determination do not appear to have diminished despite the prosaic hurdles of renouncing ownership of almost everything, including money. It usually means that when we meet I pay for his cup of English breakfast tea and sandwich. Murrumu – an accomplished artist – uses his work as barter for goods and services, while his supporters provide him with clothing, accommodation, internet access, grocery gift vouchers ... and, of course, petrol for visits to Canberra.

During his most recent Canberra visit he opened a Yidindji Embassy in the southern suburb of Kambah with a view to establishing formal diplomatic relations with Australia and other nations.

Soon there will be a Yidindji currency and passport. Murrumu and others who have reverted to Yidindji law already carry their own unique tribal identity documents and licences.

There is also, Murrumu said, a Yidindji police force (the Yidindji Mayarra Nyalagi) that has “powers of arrest should people or citizens within the Yidindji territory invoke our jurisdiction, that being the Yidindji tribal jurisdiction or the sovereign Yidindji government jurisdiction”.

He said:

This is the very reason we give courtesy notice to the Australian Federal Police and state police when our members are travelling. The Yidindji tribal people are not bound by any laws created subject to the Australian constitution – they are of superior jurisdiction and Australian citizens, including Australian police, must be very careful when encountering people of our jurisdiction. So the Yidindji police are there to protect the Yidindji people and to uphold the laws created by the sovereign Yidindji government.

Which is why the police were confused about the Yidindji-licenced car, he said.

Due to the lack of ‘constitutional recognition’ they cannot legally see the Yidindji tribal people or its institutions ... All entities such as the Australian Federal Police cannot see behind the very document that created them – the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act 1901.

The reversion to tribal law by Murrumu and others is one of many challenges posed to the “recognise” movement that aims, with bipartisan political support, to have Indigenous people recognised in the Australian constitution.

Tony Abbott has vowed to “sweat blood” to achieve a 2017 referendum to recognise Indigenous Australians in the constitution.

But support for recognition among Indigenous Australians is fractured; many see recognition as a low order issue after sovereignty, a treaty with the continent’s invaders and possessors, and finding equity in the social and health indicators that divide black and white Australia.

The unresolved question of Indigenous sovereignty burns at the core of Australian sovereignty. Murrumu and others are likely to serve as a constant reminder of that as the recognise debate intensifies.

“The numbers ... of people reverting to tribal law is growing – many people across the country have followed suit. I am aware of a few hundred across north Australia alone, but not all are with the Yidindji,” Murrumu said.

Life under tribal law is fair, just and strict. So people looking to become outlaws will not find protection or asylum in our tribal way of life.