A 71-year-old retired anaesthetist fined $5,000 for “disturbing” Queensland parliament has avoided jail for her role in a brief but raucous climate demonstration 20 months ago.
On Tuesday, Dr Lee Coaldrake pleaded guilty to disturbing the legislature, an offence created in response to the “pineapple rebellion” of 1939 in which a group of disgruntled farmers armed with barbed wire and batons tried to hold the government hostage – and one last used more than 30 years ago under the Joh Bjelke-Petersen government.
