‘I’m ready for everything and I don’t care’: the man refusing to turn up at an Australian ‘colonial’ court

‘I’ve got no intention of going to court’ says Indigenous activist/environmentalist/writer Jim Everett-puralia meenamatta, 81, who does not recognise the sovereignty of ‘colonial’ settlement. Photograph: Matthew Newton/The Guardian

On Monday morning Jim Everett-puralia meenamatta, a Tasmanian Aboriginal elder, is due in Hobart magistrates court to face a trespassing charge after his alleged illegal protest in March against old growth logging in the Styx Valley of the Giants.

But Uncle Jim, as the beloved octogenarian Pakana Plangermairreener man is known, will be nowhere near the court. No, the celebrated artist, writer, academic and filmmaker will be as good as a world away at his traditional home on Cape Barren Island.