Court cases involving Blockade Australia climate protesters will be "carefully" monitored by the NSW government after one activist had charges dismissed on mental health grounds.
Mali Poppy Cooper, 22, locked themself onto the steering wheel of a car on the eastern approach to the Sydney Harbour tunnel during a wider Blockade Australia protest in and around Sydney's CBD in June.
Activists faced charges of disrupting traffic and obstructing drivers or pedestrians, but Lismore magistrate Jeff Linden dismissed the charges without conviction under the Mental Health Act on Tuesday.
He also ordered them into the care of a psychologist for six months.
Mali Cooper's lawyer says a decisive factor was his client's trauma in seeing their hometown of Lismore destroyed twice by floods in the months before the protest.
Attorney-General Mark Speakman has ordered a transcript of the decision to "understand what actually happened" in the case.
"The NSW government introduced new laws to give the courts the tools to impose tougher financial penalties and prison sentences on these illegal protesters who disrupt everyone's lives, in line with community expectations," he said on Wednesday.
"The law requires any mental health impairment relied on to be a 'disturbance' which rises to the level that it 'would be regarded as significant for clinical diagnostic purposes'.
"Mere 'anxiety' without this is not enough."
Mr Speakman said the government would monitor future cases "carefully", while noting reports the particulars of Mali Cooper's case made it unlikely a precedent had been set.
Prosecutors have no right to appeal a mental health diversion order.
But if a potential error of law is apparent, the decision can be challenged in the Supreme Court.
Mali Cooper on Tuesday said they had watched Lismore being decimated by a climate disaster.
"The terrifying reality of climate breakdown is here. This town is still living it," they said.
