A climate activist arrested after protesting at the Western Australia home of Woodside Energy’s chief executive says there was no intention of entering the house and that no one’s safety was under threat.
Disrupt Burrup Hub’s media adviser, Jesse Noakes, was released from police custody on Wednesday night, two days after the climate group protested at Meg O’Neill’s Western Australia family home.
The activists are protesting against the ongoing development of the Burrup peninsula and claim Woodside has destroyed thousands of sacred rock art sites as part of the development of a large-scale gas development know as the Burrup Hub. They have been heavily criticised for targeting the home of the gas giant’s boss.
“At no point was the safety or security of Ms O’Neill or anyone else under threat from one nineteen year old with a spray can,” Noakes said in a statement on Thursday.
Noakes said there was “never any intent to enter Ms O’Neill’s home”, and a rear exit on the property was deliberately left accessible to enable her to leave the premises.
He said a “courageous nineteen year old campaigner” was “ambushed” by more than a dozen counter-terror police who were “lying in wait”. He claimed the police presence was the source of “any intimidation felt” during the protest.
Noakes also said O’Neill’s neighbours who were walking their dogs near the house had appeared “unconcerned through an ongoing counter-terror police operations”.
“This was, after all, more than a dozen embedded counter-terror cops facing off with a nineteen year old with some water balloons to highlight the threat Woodside’s Burrup Hub poses to our only home, the future of planet Earth.”
He also said the protest was organised with no prior involvement or input from the ABC, after the state premier, Roger Cook, hit out at the public broadcaster who had filmed it.
O’Neill has also criticised the activist group, describing them as “extremist” protesters whose actions “should be condemned”.
“This was not a ‘harmless’ protest,” she said on Tuesday. “It was designed to threaten me, my partner and our daughter in our home.”
In his statement, Noakes said his being held in custody with no access to communications gave Woodside and the state government an opportunity to “set the narrative”.
The state security investigation group charged four individuals after the incident at City Beach on Tuesday.
Three men, aged 21, 31 and 34, and a 19-year-old woman were each charged with one count of conspiracy to commit an indictable offence, according to a police statement.
The two older men, including Noakes, appeared in Perth magistrates court on Wednesday. Noakes confirmed they had both been released on bail.
A 21-year-old is due to appear in Perth magistrates court on 14 August. The teenager is due to appear in the same court on 15 August.
When being driven from the scene of the protest by police, Noakes said the song Every Breath You Take, by The Police, was playing.
“‘I’ll be watching you’ – highly amusing,” he said.
