Three cases, scattered across three eras, warn us that unless law remembers its duty to serve justice, not just authority, Australia and other countries, will keep reliving the same tragedy.
The stories of Max Stuart (1959), Ned Kelly (1878–1880), and Dezi Freeman (2025) span more than a century, yet they converge on a single truth: whenever law and justice are prised apart, destruction follows.
The accused suffer, communities fracture, and the authority of the state corrodes.
Was each man’s fate determined less by fact than by the way power was wielded: through provocation, bias, and suppression?
Three Men, Three Eras
Max Stuart (1959): An Arrernte man accused of murdering a young girl near Ceduna in South Australia. Illiterate and unable to speak fluent English, he was interrogated without an interpreter and convicted on a confession experts later showed he could not have written. His execution was only averted because a young Rupert Murdoch, then editor of The News in Adelaide, joined Father Tom Dixon in campaigning for his life. Together, they exposed flaws in the trial and forced the case into public view. Stuart was eventually released from prison in 1973 after serving 14 years. He lived until 2014, continuing to assert his innocence until his death.
Ned Kelly (1878–1880): The son of poor Irish selectors in colonial Victoria. His family clashed repeatedly with police, who harassed them over stock thefts and land disputes. After the Fitzpatrick incident, Kelly fled into the bush, forming the Kelly Gang and killing three policemen at Stringybark Creek. His “Jerilderie Letter” railed against police corruption, but he was ultimately captured at Glenrowan and executed.
Dezi Freeman (2025): A modern-day sovereign citizen, known for rejecting state authority and railing against police “harassment.” For decades his life was punctuated by fines, licence disputes, and trespass claims, but his turning point was public. Six years earlier, 60 Minutes had aired a programme showing how he was relentlessly provoked by neighbours and hounded through petty complaints. Friends describe him as frustrated, eccentric, and at times paranoid - but none has ever suggested he was capable of the alleged historical sex offences that suddenly justified a large-scale police operation. When ten officers arrived at his rural home to execute a warrant, was it a neutral act of law enforcement or a display of overwhelming force?
The encounter ended in blood: two officers dead, one wounded, and Freeman vilified as an “extremist.”
Policing: From Protection to Provocation
Stuart, Kelly, and Freeman all encountered policing that escalated rather than calmed. Stuart was interrogated into submission. Kelly’s family endured raids that bred resistance. Freeman, already a man frayed by years of neighbourly provocation and official harassment, was met with a military-style warrant team.
In each case, did policing become less about fairness than about stamping out an outsider - Stuart for his race, Kelly for his class and ethnicity, Freeman for his ideology? The law was present, but was justice absent?
A Pattern of Escalation: From Wieambilla to Freeman
Freeman’s case is not unique. In 2022, at Wieambilla in Queensland, a simple welfare check ended in horror after heavily armed police confronted residents who rejected state authority. Six people, including two young officers, were killed. Afterwards, the property was quietly purchased by the police union, raising lingering questions about transparency and accountability.
The lesson from Wieambilla was clear to many: overwhelming force and lack of de-escalation can turn tense situations into bloodshed. Yet only a few years later, the same tactics were deployed against Freeman - with equally tragic consequences. These are not isolated missteps but a recurring pattern, where policing has grown increasingly militarised and confrontational, at the cost of lives and trust.
Media: Amplifying Power, Silencing Doubt
The press has always shaped how Australians see such figures. Stuart survived because Rupert Murdoch’s News and Father Dixon refused to let his case be buried. Kelly was cast as an outlaw by the colonial press even as folk songs turned him into a hero. Freeman’s story, by contrast, has already been framed as that of a cop-killing extremist, with little space given to the background of neighbour harassment, the 60 Minutes exposé, or the extraordinary police presence that lit the fuse.
When media sides with power instead of questioning it, is the law weaponised? Does justice wither?
Support: The Missing Lifeline
What each case lacked was timely support to de-escalate conflict and uphold fairness. Stuart had no proper legal aid until church and press intervened. Kelly had no avenue for selectors’ grievances. Freeman’s descent into paranoia and desperation was visible - friends, family, and journalists saw it coming.
Where justice demands safeguards, has Australia too often left men to face the law alone?
The Deeper Lesson
The names change, the uniforms change, even the century changes. But the story repeats. Law without justice is not order - it is oppression. It fuels mistrust, rebellion, and bloodshed. Stuart, Kelly, and Freeman stand as markers on that long road, reminding us that the “Fair Go” is not guaranteed - it must be fought for, demanded, defended.
Unless law and justice once again hold hands, more Australians will be driven down the same destructive path, and we will have learned nothing from the past.
I do not declare these men guilty or innocent. I only ask: where was the Fair Go - and will we have the courage to find it again?
