MALCOLM Turnbull may have scrapped knights and dames from Australia’s honours system but he can’t touch aristocrat Peter Hellen’s bona fide knighthood.

Mr Hellen — or, more appropriately, Sir Peter — is a passport-holding citizen of the Republic of Wynnum, a micronation of 800 citizens inside Queensland that is today marking the first anniversary of its secession from the Commonwealth.

The fledgling nation in Brisbane’s eastern suburbs, on the shores of Moreton Bay, boasts its own flag, passport, government departments, tax system and aristocracy.

Among the lords, ladies, viscounts, earls, duchesses, princes and princesses in the republic are Mr Hellen, a knight, and his wife Colleen, a countess.

But they did have to fork out a small fee to earn their noble titles, with funds used to maintain ongoing operations in the tiny “country”.

“It’s all a bit tongue-in-cheek really,” Mr Hellen, owner of local business DBS Menswear, told news.com.au

“To become a knight I just handed over my money after having been a long-serving retailer in Wynnum because I thought it would be a bit of fun. It’s the only opportunity I will have to be a knight.

“There are privileges: you do cop slightly more of a ribbing than normal people and there’s plenty of free abuse from colleagues and friends and fellow business owners.”

The Republic of Wynnum is not the only attempt to assert a sovereign territory inside Australia’s borders.

Self-proclaimed “Prince” Paul Delprat established his 700sq m kingdom, the Principality of Wy, in the Sydney suburb of Mosman in 2004, frustrated by a two-decade battle with Mosman Council to build a driveway.

The former Sovereign State of Aeterna Lucina was founded by a German-born pensioner on a property near Byron Bay, while Australia’s oldest micronation, the Principality of Hutt River in Western Australia, was formed in 1970 following a dispute over wheat quotas.

But it wasn’t so much conflict as community pride — and a bit of humour — that prompted the Republic of Wynnum to declare its independence from Australia, and thereby the state of Queensland and Brisbane City Council, on November 12 last year.

“When we declared independence we said that Australia didn’t have enough interesting small states,” David Bateson, the republic’s spokesman and “ambassador to Australia”, told news.com.au

“Europe’s got Monoco, Andora and Lichtenstein and in fact Wynnum (the suburb) has about 24,000 people living in it, so it’s actually more populous than existing countries that have seats at the UN.

“Another reason we gave was that Wynnum was already regarded by most of Brisbane as being another country so wasn’t that big of a leap to actually become one.

“What we’re really doing is encouraging people to come and visit Wynnum because what they may find is that it’s changed a little bit. In the Brisbane area people sometimes have a set idea about what Wynnum is and we’re trying to spread the word that it’s changing for the better.”

Mr Bateson said the suburb was undergoing a renaissance with new buildings, eclectic new hot spots and artisan boutiques popping up.

It even now has its very first wine bar — which you may scoff at, but for Wynnum, that is a huge deal.

Day-to-day operations in the republic are no easy feat. There’s no supreme leader, so a small team of citizens busily oversee its departments of finance, foreign affairs, culture, infrastructure and tourism. Right now the focus is on the nation’s first Citizen of the Year campaign.

Would-be citizens of the Republic of Wynnum can apply for a passport online. There are some benefits, such as discounts in local stores, and the republic will soon announce its citizen lottery.

Even Wynnum’s local state and federal MPs are citizens, as are, for some reason, people from well outside its territory — some as far away as Switzerland.

While it’s all a bit of fun for most “citizens” living abroad, others have had more calculating intentions.

“What we’ve been at pains to point out, and we realised this pretty much within 24 hours of declaring independence, is that for people applying from overseas — and we did get some — possession of a Republic of Wynnum passport was unlikely to grant them any rights of residency in land claimed by Australia, which would include Wynnum,” Mr Bateson said.

“Unfortunately, we did have a couple people to whom we needed to make aware of that.”

But one of the biggest appeals of citizenship is getting in on the republic’s peerage system, which even bestows noble titles to pets.

Titles cost between $25 and $95 each and also include the titles of baron, baroness, marquess and marchioness.

“As Australia decides it doesn’t want knights and dames I think the Republic of Wynnum is the only place on the Australian mainland where you can become one, and you don’t have to wait to be nominated,” Mr Bateson said.

“We do have a voluntary tax system, although it doesn’t work well, so this is one of the ways that we can actually raise some funds so we can do the things we’d like to do, such as a ticker-tape parade for Independence Day next year, and to support some of the events we hold here, such as our weekly twilight market and a our big annual festival.”

Sadly, one of the downsides of being a young nation is there isn’t a great deal of coin in the national coffers.

But the anniversary has given its citizenry a chance to reflect on its quirky but proud republic and why it’s such a great thing to be part of.

“I think it brings ordinary, everyday people together, that’s a big plus,” Mr Hellen said.

“It taps into our native cynicism. We have conditioned cynicism as a result of living in Australia and it’s just a way of going, ‘hang on — we can do our own thing here’.

“Wynnum is a fantastic blend of country meets the sea in the middle of the city. The majority of locals here are very friendly, very grounded, very down-to-earth people and they appreciate what they’ve got. Wynnum does have a really good sense of community. You walk down the street and you say hello to half the people.

“We’re really proud to be Australian but we’re stamping out our territory and we’re saying, ‘well, we’ve got pride in our community’ and our patch of Brisbane here.”