Independent State of Rainbow Creek

Independent State of Rainbow Creek
Flag Seal
Motto: "Justice Always"
Anthem: God Save the Queen
Official languages	English
Government	Autonomous British Colony
• Governor	Thomas Barnes
Establishment
• Declared	23 July 1979
Membership	<5
Currency	Rainbow Creek Dollar

The Independent State of Rainbow Creek was an Australian secessionist micronation active during the 1970s and 80s.

It was founded as a result of a long-running compensation dispute between a group of Victorian farmers in the town of Cowwarr, and an agency of the Victorian state government, the State Rivers and Water Supply Commission (SRWSC), and was intended as a way of publicising their cause to the wider community.

Cowwarr is located on the Thomson River in the Victorian Alps. It is sited downstream of heavily forested country, and during the winter flood season infrastructure in the area is often subject to damage by the large volume of bushland debris washed downstream.

A road bridge built over the Thomson River at Cowwarr in the late 1930s proved to be sited too close to the annual flood high-water mark, so when that structure proved an impediment to the flow of debris during a particularly violent flood in 1952, the river simply carved a new course for itself around the edge of the bridge. This "breakaway" - later named Rainbow Creek - passed through a number of privately owned farming properties. Remedial action proved ineffective, and the creek was enlarged by subsequent flooding to the size of several football fields - at the expense of the affected farmers’ lands.

Deciding to make the best of a bad situation the farmers began using water from the creek to irrigate their properties, however local and state authorities responded by serving them with levies for water use. Those affected had to pay one set of levies to the local council for land which was now underwater, because their title deeds did not show the existence of the creek, a second levy to the SRWSC for using creek waters for irrigation purposes, and a third levy to the Thomson River Improvement Trust which was supposed to prevent further erosion by the creek - which nonetheless continued to grow inexorably with each new flood. The SRWSC then constructed a weir across the river downstream of the bridge in 1954, which had the effect of funnelling even higher volumes of floodwater directly into Rainbow Creek.

By the late 1970s the creek was 8 metres (26 feet) deep and over 50 metres (164 feet) wide, and farmers had to privately fund the construction of bridges to cross from one part of their properties to the other. These were all washed away, along with crops, stock, and equipment by particularly severe flooding in 1978. The farmers of Cowwarr had long 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.