WHAT WAS CLAIMED
Queen Elizabeth signed the Commonwealth over to an Australian man in 2013.
OUR VERDICT
False. The Queen did not sign the Commonwealth over to anyone.
AAP FACTCHECK - The late Queen Elizabeth II did not sign over control of the Commonwealth to an Australian in 2013, contrary to a claim in a viral social media video. The claim relates to the Queen signing an agreement called the Charter of the Commonwealth, which merely sets out the values and principles that Commonwealth states agree to uphold.
The false claim was made in a Facebook video featuring a woman who says that "earth-shattering" revelations of international corruption have recently been uncovered.
It received tens of thousands of views and more than 2000 likes.
The woman makes a series of claims which reference a conspiracy theory that the Rothschild family secretly control global institutions, including British royalty.
AAP FactCheck has previously debunked claims the Rothschild family controls many of the world's central banks and that Australia is a corporation controlled by the Rothschild family.
About 3 minutes and 30 seconds into the video, the woman claims that Queen Elizabeth II signed over control of the Commonwealth to an Australian called Andrew Morton Garrett.
"On March 11, 2013, Queen Elizabeth II willingly transferred the charter of the Commonwealth of Australia to the Crown attorney general, Andrew Morton Garrett, giving him full control of the Commonwealth," she says.
She later claims Mr Garrett went on to set up various trusts that hold the "money withheld from we the people".
Documents shown in the background during the video are sourced from a 280-page PDF published online that appears to have been authored by Mr Garrett, dated July 4 2025.
Queen Elizabeth's signature is pictured on page 5 of the document, as shown in the video, underneath a heading reading "Charter of the Commonwealth", dated to "Commonwealth Day" in 2013.
The image has been taken from the official Charter of the Commonwealth, which was signed by the late Queen in 2013, setting out the values members of the Commonwealth are committed to.
The charter was signed by all member states, which received widespread coverage at the time.
It outlines the core values and principles - such as democracy, human rights and the rule of law - that guide cooperation among the member countries of the Commonwealth of Nations, the BBC reported.
As explained in a brief for the UK parliament, the charter is not legally binding and it cannot be enforced. Instead, it is a political and moral declaration.
There is no evidence that the late Queen "willingly transferred" the charter or the Commonwealth to anyone.
The 12-page charter also doesn't detail a transfer of control of the multinational organisation to anyone and makes no mention of Mr Garrett or a "Crown attorney general".
However, even if she did, it would not hand over control of the Commonwealth countries.
A spokesperson for the Commonwealth of Nations told AAP FactCheck that it is up to each member state to ratify the charter through their own domestic parliamentary processes.
The Commonwealth of Nations itself is not controlled by any one person, organisation or state and instead is governed as a voluntary association of 56 countries.
The head of the Commonwealth is the British monarch, currently King Charles, but the organisation is run by a secretary general and a board of governors chosen by states.
Furthermore, Mr Garrett is not and has never been the "Crown attorney general", as claimed in the video.
The 280-page document says (page 45/46) that Mr Garrett appointed himself "Commonwealth attorney general" after sending the British Monarchy a notice in 2019 that they had contravened the "common law".
This did not lead to Mr Garrett becoming the "Commonwealth attorney general" nor the "Crown attorney general", both of which do not exist.
The document goes on to claim that Mr Garrett then appointed liquidators to the Commonwealth, the states and territories of Australia, as well as the Federal Court and High Court of Australia.
These claims are false. While Mr Garrett may have unilaterally declared himself the legal authority in these areas, this statement has no basis in the Australian Constitution.
There is no mention of a Crown attorney general in the constitution, let alone mention of such a role's power to liquidate government and legal structures.
As AAP FactCheck has previously explored, false claims that supposed contraventions of "common law" undermine the legal authority of nations and their courts are common among adherents of pseudo-legal belief systems such as the sovereign citizen movement.
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