blamed government incompetence over nearly three decades for their woes, but when they were denied the right to claim compensation for loss of land, productivity, and private infrastructure in 1978 they decided to take further action. One of the worst affected properties was Yammacoona, located directly below the weir, and owned by Thomas Barnes since 1970. Barnes was a retired UK and Victorian police officer who had settled in the town some time before. He was known as a man of feisty temperament with little patience for the slow-turning wheels of government bureaucracy, and a flair for publicity. Secession In an attempt to gain public sympathy Barnes and around thirty other farmers decided to declare war on the state of Victoria. Signed on 19 December 1978, the Declaration was served with due pomp to a bemused governor in Melbourne on 16 January 1979, before banks of television cameras. Some legal scuffling between Barnes and the SRWSC followed in the Victorian court system, during which minor points were won and lost on both sides, after which a government offer of loans - but not the desired compensation - was rejected by the farmer group. Barnes meanwhile had become aware of the Hutt River Province and seeking to emulate "Prince Leonard" took legal advice and then declared the unilateral secession of his property from the State of Victoria on 23 July 1979. He appointed himself "Governor" of the newly created Independent State of Rainbow Creek, and together with "Minister for Information" George Downing, swore allegiance to Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom as his Head of State. His secession document was lodged with the Victorian Governor, the Governor-General of Australia, Buckingham Palace and the International Court of Justice in The Hague. Public attention was again focused on Cowwarr, and the existence of the State of Rainbow Creek ensured that Barnes remained a thorn in the side of the SRWSC and the Victorian Government for a number of years, as he issued passports, stamps, banknotes and other printed material to promote the cause of his farming community. Ill health eventually forced Barnes to retire to Queensland in the mid-1980s, from where he has since published several books of local history and poetry, whilst the issues that led to the Rainbow Creek secession remained unresolved. References "If at first you don't secede...", by Mark Dapin, The Sydney Morning Herald - Good Weekend, 12