The exhausted poster girl for Australia’s waning anti-vaxxer movement and onetime reality TV hopeful has admitted she is ‘overwhelmed’ after a $50,000 funding drive raised just $8.07 in her group’s ‘cryptowallet’.
Monica Smit, the founder of Reignite Democracy Australia (RDA) who once auditioned to be a contestant on the TV show Survivor, made headlines last year when she filmed and livestreamed her police arrest for breaking lockdown rules.
She has been the face of Melbourne‘s anti-lockdown protests, and is due to stand trial in Victoria’s County Court on two charges of incitement to which she has pleaded not guilty.
She has also been charged with three counts of failing to comply with authorised directions.
The 34-year-old is on a money raising and recruitment mission for RDA ahead of the federal election and says she plans to campaign to oust the major political parties in every electorate.
Reignite Democracy Australia has been touting for funds via the platform DonorBox and through their app RDASocial, but although neither site posts how much has been donated, the RDA’s cryptocurrency wallet has received a total of $US8.09.
An exhausted-looking and teary Ms Smit admits in a video posted on the social media platform Telegram that she is suffering from ‘overwhelmingness’ and that her group’s presence has dwindled after platforms like Facebook have kept on blocking her every attempt to set up a new page.
Australia’s poster girl or the anti-vaxxer movement Monica Smith admits she is ‘overwhelmed’ after the exhausted looking campaigner launched a funding drive which raised little money
Reignite Democracy Australia’s ‘cryptowallet’ had $US 8.09 in it, although the sum fell a few cents lower and the exchange rate with Australia dollars fluctuated
Monica Smith made news when she filmed and livestreamed herself (above) being pulled over by Victorian Police when she drove outside her 6km radius from home during lockdown
In a video since removed from Reignite Democracy Australia’s remaining social media pages, Ms Smit complained about the costs of running the group and employing staff.
‘If we don’t get more funding, we’re going to have to cut down what we can do,’ she said according to a report by Crikey.com.
One of the RDA sites states both that Ms Smit ‘only pays herself $500/wk’ and complains it cannot get not for profit status ‘because of our political work’.
Crikey reported Smit suggesting that if 10,000 people signed up to the group’s minimum donation of $5 per month, RDA would survive, with a later post claiming 60 people had signed up.
Ms Smit first shot to prominence in October 2020 when she sponsored a bus that drove around Melbourne calling for Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews to be sacked.
Launched during the peak of Victoria’s Covid lockdowns, Reignite Democracy Australia has actively campaigned against the country’s vaccination rollout.
Ms Smit is alleged to have encouraged people to attend the protests via posts on the Telegram app inciting her followers to breach directions by taking off masks.
Police officers were injured and taken to a hospital as a result of the protests, including one at Melbourne’s Flinders Street Station in August last year, described in court as ‘one of the most violent’ demonstrations in 20 years.
Monica Smit (above) smiles as she is dragged away at Flinders Street Station during a snap protest on the eve of Melbourne’s sixth lockdown in August last year
A Reignite Australia T-shirt, which can cost from $44 to $79, is modelled by Ms Smit with the slogan ‘Keep calm you have an immune system’
As she filmed herself being pulled over by police last year, Ms Smit said to the camera ‘let’s see what happens’ but then asked the officers ‘Have you guys been following me?’
But the anti-vaxxer movement has struggled for relevance amid the country’s growing vaccination rate.
Australia is among the most vaccinated nations in the world, with a double vaccination rate of 82.5 per cent, and its Covid death toll a total of 5,959.
The nation’s death rate per million people is 232, compared with 2451 per million in the UK and 2961 total deaths per million in the US.
In a video posted on Telegram this week, Ms Smit begs people to join her group and use their social media pages to attract others.
‘I can personally not publish anything on Facebook,’ she says.
‘Facebook just knows my IP address and they just block anything I do, so I’m going to need people like you guys to do it.
‘You don’t have to have thousands of followers, a couple of hundred will do, Why not just sign up?
‘I am actually excited. Yes there are times of overhwelmingness,’ she says, looking teary.
‘I am not going to lie to you, I’m not a superhuman.
The anti-vaxxer movement in Australia (above, protesters in Melbourne) has failed with support falling away as the nation has become one of the world’s most vaccinated
Monica Smit’s site asks for money to be donated via several different methods and says that she only pays herself $500 a week and the group ‘don’t take any profits at all’
The anti-vaxxer movement has struggled for relevance amid the country’s growing double vaccination rate of 82.5 per cent, and its comparatively low Covid death toll of 5,959.
‘But you know you do things like exercise to get it out of your system. That’s my problem, your problem is to sign up … not your problem, your solution I should say.
‘Sign up and be a volunteers… and let’s get this show on the road. Guys! I don’t want to live through that again, we’ve got to do this together but I can’t do it without you guys.’
Ms Smit was pulled over by Victorian Police last September while driving more than 5km from her home in Melbourne.
She decided to pick up her phone and livestream the incident on Facebook to show her followers as evidence ‘just in case’.
‘I’ve just been pulled over by the cops, probably because I’m outside my 5km. But we’ll see what happens,’ Ms Smit says on the video.
She looked frustrated and let out a large sigh as she waited in her vehicle for the police to address her.
As the police approached Ms Smit’s window, one officer said: ‘Hello Monica, how are you doing?’
The officers from Springvale Police Station then informed Ms Smit they needed to place her under arrest for a matter of incitement.
Shocked by the arrest, Ms Smit asked: ‘Have you guys been following me?’
Ms Smit spent 22 days in custody before being released on bail on the incitement charges last year, and announced her engagement to fellow anti-vaxxer Morgan Jonas on her release from prison.
Ms Smit spent 22 days in custody before being released on bail on the incitement charges and announced her engagement to fellow anti-vaxxer Morgan Jonas on her release (above)
To help raise money for Monica Smit’s anti-vaxxer group you can buy her merchandise including T-shirts like this one which go for up to $79
On one of her Reignite Democracy Australia websites, Ms Smith models some of the merchandise for sale.
RDA Social sells T-shirts for up to $79 with messages including ‘keep calm you have an immune system’ and ‘I’m immune building not distancing. High Five’.
RDA asks for donation by credit card, paypal, direct deposit or via a cryptocurrency wallet.
Under the title ‘Support Our Mission’, the group explains it has ‘to pay tax and GST like every other business’ and claims ‘we don’t take any profits at all, EVERYTHING goes back into the organisation’.
After explaining that Ms Smit pays herself $500 each week, the site adds that ‘her staff make more than she does’.
The site states that Ms Smit’s group is ‘not racist, it does not support white supremacism, it does not support violence in any form, it is not anti-Semitic, and it is not full of ‘grifters’ whatever that means. RDA does not assert itself as right-wing at all’>