Three years ago, Jeremy Geia was a well-paid political journalist reporting from Australia’s capital.

But he doesn’t exist anymore.Murrumu Walubara, as he is now known, has taken a tribal name, renounced Australian citizenship and abandoned two decades worth of savings.

He has returned to his ancestral land in northeast Australia, where he has set about creating an indigenous nation with its own laws and institutions.

Witness follows Murrumu during his impassioned weekly radio broadcast to promote the newly-announced state, at citizen swearing-in ceremonies, and travelling to Canberra to lobby Australian ministers and foreign embassies for recognition.

Will he be greeted as a publicity-seeking activist or will his calls for independence be taken seriously?