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.
Disturbing the legislature carries a three-year maximum sentence, but that was not sought by police prosecutor Marshall Bostock, who noted her plea, cooperation with security and letters of reference from former vice-chancellor of Griffith University, emeritus professor Ian O’Connor AC, Brisbane festival chair Anna Reynolds and Roisin Goss, wife of the late former premier Wayne.
“Your honour, they are very impressive references,” Bostock said.
Coaldrake, a grandmother who lives in the affluent inner-city suburb of Teneriffe, was accompanied in court by her husband, Peter, a former Queensland University of Technology vice-chancellor who led a major review into the integrity of the public service and Queensland government which was handed down in June 2022.
Also present to hear the sentence were many of the 13 people who also took part in the Extinction Rebellion protest in parliament on 30 November 2022, at which demonstrators unfurled banners with anti-fossil fuel slogans from the public gallery, interrupting question time with chants of “end fossil fuels now” and “stop coal, stop gas” for less than three minutes before being stopped by security.
The remaining 13 cases are expected to come before the court in October, after Pinder twice insisted upon hearing them separately, contrary to the expectations of prosecutors and the defence, and a path that required him to overturn a decision by another magistrate to hear all 14 cases together.
Coaldrake’s case opened the hearings as her name was alphabetically listed first.
Other protesters included a former Queensland state epidemiologist now in his 80s, a small business owner, retired public servants, medical workers and students.
“I’m relieved it’s over,” Coaldrake said of the legal deliberations after the decision.
Coaldrake’s legal representative, Holli Edwards, told Pinder her client was regarded by colleagues and friends as “a principled person of high integrity” who, after retiring about five years ago, had decided to “invest most of her time” into her seven grandchildren.
It was also during this period Coaldrake became increasingly involved in the climate action movement, being charged with two other minor offences, one involving graffiti, which occurred shortly before the parliament protest, and the other for contravening the direction of a police officer while she was on bail. Neither carried a recorded conviction.
Upon leaving court to cheers from fellow protesters, Coaldrake said she would continue to protest – thought strictly by legal means.
“We are truly at a pivotal moment in our history,” she said.
“We are fighting for our children and for our grandchildren. They’re depending on us we – must all act together.
“Unless we act now to stem the worst impacts of climate change, we standing here today will be the last generation to expect to die of old age.”
Her husband, Peter, said he supported Coaldrake personally and professionally.
“And, obviously, I admire her,” he said. “She is a person of great integrity, who reads deeply and she’s obviously a fantastic person, mother and grandmother.”
