WEBVTT - In Australia, A State-By-State Approach to Criminalizing Climate Protest 0:00:01.280 --> 0:00:05.080 Welcome back to Drill. I'm Amy Westervelt. Today we continue 0:00:05.080 --> 0:00:09.400 our series on the criminalization of environmental protest, the real 0:00:09.600 --> 0:00:13.119 free speech threat. In this episode, we head to Australia 0:00:13.520 --> 0:00:17.560 with reporter Lyndall Rollins, who's been reporting on how anti 0:00:17.640 --> 0:00:22.280 protest laws swept Australia. Australia is a unique context for 0:00:22.320 --> 0:00:26.320 a few different reasons. It's a major fossil fuel economy, 0:00:26.560 --> 0:00:30.160 parterially with coal and now with gas. It's also a 0:00:30.200 --> 0:00:33.680 place where the media is heavily influenced by industry money, 0:00:33.760 --> 0:00:36.320 thanks in large part to the fact that Rupert Murdoch 0:00:36.440 --> 0:00:39.320 owns a large percentage of it. And it's a place 0:00:39.400 --> 0:00:43.559 where people voted last year overwhelmingly for a government that 0:00:43.600 --> 0:00:47.959 would do something about climate. It's really interesting to examine 0:00:48.000 --> 0:00:52.239 the criminalization trend in that context, and Lyndall's done some 0:00:52.320 --> 0:00:55.640 excellent reporting on that front over the last year. Here 0:00:55.680 --> 0:01:00.080 she is with that story. 0:01:03.760 --> 0:01:05.720 That's the sound of an activist at the Art Gallery 0:01:05.760 --> 0:01:08.720 of Western Australia spray painting and artwork with the logo 0:01:08.800 --> 0:01:12.840 of fossil fuel giant woodside. The painting was protected by 0:01:12.840 --> 0:01:19.480 clear plastic, unlike the Indigenous rocket threatened by Woodsides activities barely. 0:01:19.200 --> 0:01:20.360 One hundred years old. 0:01:21.760 --> 0:01:26.000 We have five fifty thousand year old art loot that 0:01:26.120 --> 0:01:27.680 Woodside is destroyed. 0:01:29.000 --> 0:01:32.759 That's Speladong nungar Man Desmond Blatin. This is big. 0:01:34.680 --> 0:01:38.880 I play my respects for my honors and my ancestors. 0:01:41.160 --> 0:01:45.600 As I stand here today, I am artwork that a 0:01:45.720 --> 0:01:48.680 sacred to our people is being destroyed. 0:01:49.440 --> 0:01:52.640 He's explaining how Woodside's plans to expand its sparrop gas 0:01:52.640 --> 0:01:56.000 project at Murdruga could see ancient paintings that have survived 0:01:56.080 --> 0:01:58.480 tens of thousands of years disappear. 0:01:59.120 --> 0:02:05.680 Onside Patrol is the largest fossil fuel project in Australia. 0:02:06.360 --> 0:02:13.079 They are destroying ancient burg of the RockA. We demand. 0:02:14.400 --> 0:02:16.240 No industry on the bar. 0:02:17.280 --> 0:02:21.120 We must protect our cultural heritage an artwork. 0:02:21.480 --> 0:02:28.119 Now, by expanding the Borough Gas project with junior gas 0:02:28.160 --> 0:02:31.240 fields at Brows and Scarborough, Woodside is planning to emit 0:02:31.440 --> 0:02:36.840 an estimated six billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions. Analysis 0:02:36.880 --> 0:02:40.280 from climate advocacy group Clean State says this would make 0:02:40.320 --> 0:02:44.160 the Borough Hub Australia's most polluting fossil fuel project ever. 0:02:45.240 --> 0:02:48.520 After a recent merger with mining giant PHP, Woodside is 0:02:48.560 --> 0:02:51.280 now the biggest fossil fuel company in Australia. 0:02:52.720 --> 0:02:56.280 Now this merger has expanded our portfolio and extended our 0:02:56.320 --> 0:03:00.679 global reach, including a significant office in Houston, but Woodside 0:03:00.720 --> 0:03:02.919 remains a proudly Australian company. 0:03:04.200 --> 0:03:08.160 That's Meg O'Neil. She's the CEO of Woodside and she 0:03:08.280 --> 0:03:12.240 was addressing the National Press Club of Australia earlier this year. Yes, 0:03:12.320 --> 0:03:14.440 she has an American accent. 0:03:15.520 --> 0:03:16.960 Our guest today is Mego O'Neil. 0:03:17.520 --> 0:03:20.560 Before she joined Woodside, make's career took her around the 0:03:20.560 --> 0:03:24.240 globe as head of EXAM Mobile in Africa, and. 0:03:24.280 --> 0:03:26.760 Neil previously worked for ex and Mobile in Norway and 0:03:26.800 --> 0:03:31.400 Canada before becoming its Vice President of African Development. She 0:03:31.520 --> 0:03:35.160 used her speech to outline how Woodside plans to continue 0:03:35.160 --> 0:03:37.360 expanding fossil fuel projects in Australia. 0:03:37.680 --> 0:03:40.720 We want to develop new projects in Australia across both 0:03:40.760 --> 0:03:45.000 hydrocarbons and new energy opportunities, but that will only be 0:03:45.080 --> 0:03:49.520 possible if the policy settings provide the certainty to underpin 0:03:49.600 --> 0:03:50.880 those long term investments. 0:03:52.360 --> 0:03:55.120 Although O'Neil used her speech to argue the Australian government 0:03:55.120 --> 0:03:57.960 should allow Woodside to build new projects with billions of 0:03:58.000 --> 0:04:02.240 tons of carbon emissions. Is in'neil's comments on environmental activists 0:04:02.240 --> 0:04:04.080 that attracted national headlines. 0:04:04.360 --> 0:04:07.120 A vocal minority wants to shut down the industry and 0:04:07.160 --> 0:04:11.160 the jobs and livelihoods that go with it. They have 0:04:11.240 --> 0:04:14.720 deep pockets and are using both protest action and the 0:04:14.760 --> 0:04:20.320 courts to create uncertainty and destabilize regulatory processes to frustrate 0:04:20.360 --> 0:04:22.680 both existing and new projects. 0:04:23.360 --> 0:04:26.920 O'Neil didn't provide any information to back up her claims 0:04:26.920 --> 0:04:30.440 that environmental activists in Australia have deep pockets, that they 0:04:30.440 --> 0:04:33.560 represent the views of a minority, or that their activism 0:04:33.680 --> 0:04:35.240 is somehow extremist. 0:04:35.960 --> 0:04:39.320 We certainly respect every Australian's right to express their opinion, 0:04:40.240 --> 0:04:44.880 and we absolutely share the commitment to decarbonization, but extremism 0:04:44.920 --> 0:04:45.680 is not the answer. 0:04:46.320 --> 0:04:50.840 Yet, despite the apparently fairly significant implications of calling people extremist, 0:04:51.360 --> 0:04:54.159 journalists at the National Press Club also didn't probe what 0:04:54.200 --> 0:04:58.880 had prompted O'Neil to reach this conclusion. Floods and fires 0:04:58.880 --> 0:05:01.320 are getting worse in Australia, so it might sound strange 0:05:01.360 --> 0:05:03.760 that in the few short years since millions of people 0:05:03.800 --> 0:05:07.240 were breathing in bushwire smoke. One by one, the states 0:05:07.279 --> 0:05:13.039 around the country have been banning climate change protests. My 0:05:13.160 --> 0:05:16.039 name is Lindall Rowlins, and as you'll hear in this 0:05:16.120 --> 0:05:20.000 special series of Drilled, shifting the blame to environmental activists 0:05:20.320 --> 0:05:23.520 is another tactic the fossil fuel industry uses to delay 0:05:23.560 --> 0:05:28.480 climate action, and in Australia it's been working. But while 0:05:28.520 --> 0:05:31.560 it's important to report and why environmental activists in Australia 0:05:31.600 --> 0:05:37.040 have increasingly been experiencing fines, prison sentences, surveillance and negative 0:05:37.080 --> 0:05:40.200 media coverage, it's also important to note that this all 0:05:40.240 --> 0:05:45.039 helps to create a distraction from climate change itself and 0:05:45.080 --> 0:05:48.359 what we need to do about it. So before we 0:05:48.400 --> 0:05:50.440 dig into that story, I want to take you to 0:05:50.480 --> 0:05:53.640 a meeting organized by activists trying to save an old 0:05:53.640 --> 0:05:57.440 growth forest in my home state of Victoria. We'll head 0:05:57.440 --> 0:05:59.080 there after this quick break. 0:06:09.120 --> 0:06:14.479 Given these refuges higher elevation status, it may be one 0:06:14.520 --> 0:06:18.480 of the final places where species are able to survive 0:06:18.800 --> 0:06:22.200 in a warming climate, so it's very, very important. 0:06:22.400 --> 0:06:25.160 I'm at a meeting organized by activists who've spent the 0:06:25.240 --> 0:06:28.279 last few decades trying to save old growth forests in Australia. 0:06:28.600 --> 0:06:32.520 They're particularly focused on the Erinundra forest in southeastern Australia. 0:06:32.680 --> 0:06:37.000 Can the people who were part of that event Aeronunja 0:06:37.360 --> 0:06:39.320 blockade stand. 0:06:39.080 --> 0:06:41.960 Up if you're in the room, I know there's a 0:06:42.040 --> 0:06:47.400 few of you in here. 0:06:47.720 --> 0:06:50.920 Decades after their protests helped to save parts of this forests, 0:06:50.960 --> 0:06:52.520 it's now facing new threats. 0:06:53.920 --> 0:06:57.760 Can anyone who has done sturve am who threatens species 0:06:57.800 --> 0:07:00.480 in logging coops please stand up as well and. 0:07:00.480 --> 0:07:03.679 Stay standing Toughy Morovitz is welcoming people to the meeting 0:07:03.760 --> 0:07:05.039 and explaining why we're here. 0:07:07.080 --> 0:07:07.479 You can be. 0:07:07.600 --> 0:07:12.280 Antique protest laws coming through in May. These people may 0:07:12.480 --> 0:07:18.040 potentially face a year imprisonment or twenty one thousand dollars quarants. 0:07:18.800 --> 0:07:19.760 You can stand down. 0:07:19.680 --> 0:07:22.080 Now, sit down down. 0:07:23.280 --> 0:07:26.360 Three years ago, fires tour through parts of the forest 0:07:26.440 --> 0:07:28.760 that had previously been saved from logging. 0:07:29.120 --> 0:07:35.160 The forest faces impossible challenges with logging and climate change, 0:07:35.840 --> 0:07:38.520 as we saw with the blockade up with the Aeronandra plateau. 0:07:39.720 --> 0:07:47.360 Protest remains a critical tool to prevent immediate and irreversible harm. 0:07:47.640 --> 0:07:53.160 One there's one to knowledge the son people of this country. 0:07:54.080 --> 0:08:00.120 Good words we should general. 0:08:02.800 --> 0:08:03.600 So on a. 0:08:05.320 --> 0:08:07.360 Jager Corman a. 0:08:10.400 --> 0:08:16.440 Nation that's Madri Thorpe. Her traditional gun at Kerne lands 0:08:16.440 --> 0:08:19.320 include forests full of old greath trees and animals and 0:08:19.360 --> 0:08:21.920 birds that aren't found anywhere else on Earth. 0:08:22.840 --> 0:08:29.200 Sci working with and learning from who are wandering the 0:08:29.600 --> 0:08:33.160 forest for. 0:08:33.040 --> 0:08:36.760 Thorpe has been working with volunteer citizen scientists to monitor 0:08:36.800 --> 0:08:40.840 animals in the forests, activities that now could face fines 0:08:40.880 --> 0:08:43.560 of twenty one thousand dollars and up to a year 0:08:43.600 --> 0:08:47.440 in jail under new Victorian laws specifically banning them from 0:08:47.600 --> 0:08:48.880 entering parts of the forest. 0:08:49.640 --> 0:08:53.320 There's no saying in those forests, there's no insects, there's 0:08:53.360 --> 0:08:55.760 no small animals around. 0:08:56.320 --> 0:08:58.600 Although she now lives by the forest, Thorpe is no 0:08:58.640 --> 0:09:02.040 stranger to fossil fuels. Your lawn, the town where she 0:09:02.120 --> 0:09:04.960 was born no longer exists. It was dug up for 0:09:05.040 --> 0:09:07.280 coal not long after it was built. 0:09:07.520 --> 0:09:11.240 I was born in the light town of your and 0:09:12.240 --> 0:09:16.120 come home every day from work you shauls to sweep 0:09:16.160 --> 0:09:19.439 out the hole from the houses in the roofs. He 0:09:19.600 --> 0:09:24.319 died of sixty nine as a result of your health issue. 0:09:25.480 --> 0:09:28.240 Meg O'Neill, the CEO of Woodside, who makes more than 0:09:28.280 --> 0:09:30.880 four million dollars a year running a multi billion dollar 0:09:30.920 --> 0:09:35.679 company claims that environmental activists in Australia have deep pockets. 0:09:36.559 --> 0:09:39.480 But here Thorpe is talking to volunteers about ruffling off 0:09:39.520 --> 0:09:41.840 a chicken or two at the pub to help get 0:09:41.880 --> 0:09:42.600 the word out. 0:09:43.160 --> 0:09:46.800 So somehow, you know, go back to trip graffles or 0:09:46.840 --> 0:09:50.560 whatever you have to do to raise money, but never 0:09:50.640 --> 0:09:54.719 let money stand in your way of doing something. 0:09:57.800 --> 0:10:00.520 Sending volunteers who work with the colleges to get native 0:10:00.520 --> 0:10:04.400 animals to prison may seem like a strange priority, but 0:10:04.480 --> 0:10:06.680 the new state law is only one part of a 0:10:06.679 --> 0:10:10.760 wider response to environmental activism in Australia that started escalating 0:10:10.880 --> 0:10:14.680 while the country was still on fire. Heavy fines for 0:10:14.720 --> 0:10:18.200 activists who enter forests in Victoria aren't the only steep 0:10:18.240 --> 0:10:22.439 new penalties introduced by state governments in Australia in recent years. 0:10:22.440 --> 0:10:24.920 And let's got as Brisbane and protesters there could soon 0:10:24.960 --> 0:10:25.840 be thrown into jail. 0:10:26.280 --> 0:10:29.480 Protesters in Tasmania now face a year in jail. 0:10:29.720 --> 0:10:31.400 In New South Wales it's two. 0:10:31.400 --> 0:10:35.400 Years massive new penalties for blocking roads during a demonstration. 0:10:36.559 --> 0:10:39.480 In twenty nineteen, protests against a coal mine in the 0:10:39.520 --> 0:10:44.760 Australian state of Queensland were making international headlines. Indian billionaire 0:10:44.840 --> 0:10:47.719 Gortam Adani was planning to build a coal mine in 0:10:47.800 --> 0:10:51.160 Queensland's Galilee Basin and a train line to the city 0:10:51.160 --> 0:10:53.800 of Makaia, where the coal would be shipped out past 0:10:53.920 --> 0:11:00.559 the Great Barrier reef protests against the mine and even 0:11:00.559 --> 0:11:03.480 spread to India, where activists were accused of being under 0:11:03.520 --> 0:11:07.880 foreign influence for speaking up against an Indian company. At 0:11:07.880 --> 0:11:11.960 the same time, A Dani, a multinational Indian company, was 0:11:12.000 --> 0:11:14.640 not shy about lobby and governments in Australia to cut 0:11:14.640 --> 0:11:18.319 off Stop a Dani activist funding activists with the Stop 0:11:18.320 --> 0:11:20.559 a Dani movement tried to stop the train line from 0:11:20.600 --> 0:11:27.560 being built by chaining themselves to the tracks. In response, 0:11:27.640 --> 0:11:31.640 the Queensland Resources Council, a local industry trade group, backed 0:11:31.760 --> 0:11:36.679 new legislation called the Dangerous Attachment Devices Law. DELA claimed 0:11:36.720 --> 0:11:39.800 that the various types of chains, glue and locks activists 0:11:39.800 --> 0:11:42.720 had been using to attach themselves to mining equipment, roads 0:11:42.760 --> 0:11:46.360 and bridges were dangerous to both first responders and the 0:11:46.360 --> 0:11:49.599 activists themselves. It gave police not only the right to 0:11:49.640 --> 0:11:54.000 impose heavy fines and sentences on protesters arrested with these devices, 0:11:54.360 --> 0:11:57.520 but also to stop and search anyone suspected of having 0:11:57.559 --> 0:12:01.240 an attachment device on them without a war. The new 0:12:01.320 --> 0:12:04.600 powers alarmed you and human rights experts who put out 0:12:04.600 --> 0:12:09.640 a statement describing them as inherently disproportionate, But the Queensland 0:12:09.640 --> 0:12:12.840 Resources Council argued the laud didn't go far enough, and 0:12:12.840 --> 0:12:15.520 Scott Morrison, who was the Prime Minister of Australia at 0:12:15.520 --> 0:12:18.520 the time, was happy to lend his voice to that campaign. 0:12:20.200 --> 0:12:24.439 A new breed of radical activism is on the march 0:12:25.800 --> 0:12:32.160 apocalyptic in Tone Brooks. No compromise, all or nothing, alternative 0:12:32.240 --> 0:12:33.800 views not permitted. 0:12:35.320 --> 0:12:39.480 We know that the Queensland Resources Council, for instance, were 0:12:40.200 --> 0:12:46.040 very involved and supportive of their legislation in Queensland. We 0:12:46.160 --> 0:12:50.320 know that at the time Morrison got up and spoke 0:12:50.400 --> 0:12:54.080 to that organization and that's where you can see these 0:12:54.120 --> 0:12:55.240 linkages happening. 0:12:55.920 --> 0:12:59.560 This has Vanessa Boden, a sociologist at the University of Newcastle. 0:12:59.600 --> 0:13:03.800 As you see industry talk about how important it is 0:13:03.840 --> 0:13:08.520 to the economy and then representatives of government sort of 0:13:08.559 --> 0:13:11.079 get up and say that back to industry. 0:13:12.040 --> 0:13:15.280 But politicians, companies and industry bodies aren't the only ones 0:13:15.480 --> 0:13:19.040 recycling talking points about climate activism from country to country. 0:13:19.559 --> 0:13:22.160 In Australia, as in many of the countries we're visiting 0:13:22.160 --> 0:13:25.640 in this special Drilled series, right wing think tanks also 0:13:25.760 --> 0:13:27.240 do a lot of that work. 0:13:27.960 --> 0:13:29.400 That's particularly true. 0:13:29.120 --> 0:13:32.040 Of the members of a global network of libertarian think 0:13:32.080 --> 0:13:36.080 tanks called the Atlas Network. You'll hear a lot more 0:13:36.120 --> 0:13:39.280 about them next week, but for now it's important to 0:13:39.360 --> 0:13:42.120 understand that the Atlass Network grew out of a think 0:13:42.160 --> 0:13:46.320 tank called the Institute for Economic Affairs, started in the 0:13:46.400 --> 0:13:50.320 nineteen seventies in the UK by a guy called Anthony Fisher. 0:13:51.440 --> 0:13:56.359 Fisher and the IEA accredited with spreading the conservative ideology 0:13:56.520 --> 0:13:59.839 known as Thatcherism in the UK, and on the back 0:13:59.880 --> 0:14:03.520 of that success, Fisher went around the world studying copycat 0:14:03.559 --> 0:14:07.280 think tanks. Australia was one of his first stops. 0:14:09.800 --> 0:14:15.199 It was Fisher that really did the work of galvanizing, 0:14:16.160 --> 0:14:20.600 you know a capitalists to the cause of the need 0:14:20.680 --> 0:14:23.720 to have a new institute in Australia like the Ia. 0:14:24.400 --> 0:14:27.600 That's Jeremy Walker, a researcher and lecturer at the University 0:14:27.600 --> 0:14:30.480 of Technology in Sydney and one of the world's leading 0:14:30.520 --> 0:14:32.120 experts on the Outlass network. 0:14:32.480 --> 0:14:35.040 It was called the Center of Independent Studies and the 0:14:35.080 --> 0:14:39.040 founding brands for that came from the Murdoch Press, from 0:14:39.360 --> 0:14:43.520 Shell EhP Rio tinto ex On. 0:14:43.600 --> 0:14:47.560 Later on, after the Center for Independent Studies, half a 0:14:47.560 --> 0:14:51.480 dozen more conservative think tanks joined the Atlass network in Australia. 0:14:51.600 --> 0:14:54.480 These think tanks also provide a ready supply of commentators 0:14:54.840 --> 0:14:58.480 for Rupert Murdoch's Sky News Australia, where they regularly joined 0:14:58.480 --> 0:15:03.480 the hosts in villifying climate protesters. Here's Bella Debrera, She's 0:15:03.520 --> 0:15:06.080 a researcher from one of these think tanks, the Institute 0:15:06.080 --> 0:15:10.000 for Public Affairs or IPA, on Sky News Australia talking 0:15:10.000 --> 0:15:12.960 about an educational climate book she says was designed to 0:15:13.640 --> 0:15:14.880 terrify children. 0:15:15.920 --> 0:15:18.200 Everything from there, you know, from the minute that they 0:15:18.200 --> 0:15:19.480 get up in the morning to the minute they go 0:15:19.520 --> 0:15:21.280 to bed, is all about worrying about the fact that 0:15:21.480 --> 0:15:23.600 we're going to have an apocalypse. 0:15:24.320 --> 0:15:27.520 In another appearance on Sky News, she mockingly called Greta 0:15:27.600 --> 0:15:31.240 Tomberg a saint, before going on to describe climate activism 0:15:31.320 --> 0:15:32.640 as child abuse. 0:15:33.680 --> 0:15:36.080 Very surprising that Saint Greta is appearing on the front 0:15:36.120 --> 0:15:39.040 of the Legal Studies textbook I mean, climate change is 0:15:39.080 --> 0:15:42.680 one of the main religious tenants taught in schools these days, 0:15:43.000 --> 0:15:44.920 and we've talked about on your show before. You know, 0:15:44.960 --> 0:15:48.600 the climate change marches the sort of the terror that 0:15:48.600 --> 0:15:52.440 they're that they're filling children with, which is which is 0:15:52.480 --> 0:15:54.560 akin to sort of child abuse, really, isn't it. 0:15:56.240 --> 0:15:59.400 Writing think tanks and public relation firms have been accusing 0:15:59.480 --> 0:16:03.440 environmental activists of extremism since at least the nineteen eighties. 0:16:04.040 --> 0:16:06.720 The characterization has become so common that it's even been 0:16:06.800 --> 0:16:09.560 questioned by UN Sexuary General Antonio Guterres. 0:16:09.840 --> 0:16:14.560 Climate activists are sometimes depicted as dangerous radicals, but the 0:16:14.640 --> 0:16:17.720 truly dangerous radicals are the countries that are increasing the 0:16:17.720 --> 0:16:21.680 production of fossil fools. Investing in new fossil full lips 0:16:21.720 --> 0:16:25.080 of structure is moral and economic madness. 0:16:28.200 --> 0:16:31.640 Cauterist says, building new fossil fuel infrastructure in twenty twenty 0:16:31.640 --> 0:16:35.600 three is moral and economic madness. Meanwhile, as we heard 0:16:35.600 --> 0:16:39.400 at the beginning of this episode, Woodside's Boroughpub glass project 0:16:39.440 --> 0:16:43.520 will not only omit billions of cubic tons of carbon dioxide, 0:16:43.840 --> 0:16:49.160 it will also potentially engage irreplaceable indigenous rock art. The 0:16:49.240 --> 0:16:52.880 gallery protests made international headlines, but activists have been protesting 0:16:52.920 --> 0:16:55.720 against the Boroughpub for years, and during that time they've 0:16:55.760 --> 0:16:59.880 also been followed around by Western Australia's counter terrorism Police. 0:17:00.880 --> 0:17:04.439 Counter Terrorism police regularly read the homes and officers of 0:17:04.480 --> 0:17:08.520 disrupt Borough Hub activists, as well as journalists who covered 0:17:08.560 --> 0:17:12.439 the protests. During the raids, the counter terror police spend 0:17:12.600 --> 0:17:17.360 hours combing through computers, phones and other personal belongings. All 0:17:17.359 --> 0:17:20.840 this surveillance explains why the disrupt Borough Phub activists who 0:17:20.880 --> 0:17:24.440 went to the beachside home of Woodside CEO Meg O'Neil 0:17:24.680 --> 0:17:28.280 in August this year say that counter terrorism police were 0:17:28.320 --> 0:17:31.280 already inside before the activists arrived. 0:17:33.320 --> 0:17:36.399 I never set foot on the property of Woodside CEO 0:17:36.640 --> 0:17:39.480 mago Neil, but was ambushed by Wilman a dozen counter 0:17:39.600 --> 0:17:41.280 terror police lying away from me. 0:17:42.480 --> 0:17:46.160 That was Matilda Lane Rose. She's nineteen years old and 0:17:46.240 --> 0:17:50.640 one of four disrupt Boroughhub activists arrested outside O'Neill's home. 0:17:51.200 --> 0:17:54.800 No one was ever in any danger because of this protest, 0:17:54.880 --> 0:17:57.520 and there was no possibility of anyone entering the house 0:17:57.800 --> 0:18:01.560 of the Woodside CEO except for does encounters terror police 0:18:01.760 --> 0:18:05.800 already inside the property. WA Police and the WA government 0:18:05.880 --> 0:18:09.240 are doing anything they can to stop this campaign communicating 0:18:09.600 --> 0:18:12.040 because we're getting the message out about the Barrett Hub 0:18:12.359 --> 0:18:14.240 I was doing a money good job of it, thank you. 0:18:17.520 --> 0:18:23.560 Four activists were charged with conspiracy to commit an indictable efense. 0:18:25.600 --> 0:18:29.600 Remember how earlier we heard O'Neill describing environmental activism as 0:18:29.840 --> 0:18:33.359 extremism at the National Press Club of Australia after the 0:18:33.359 --> 0:18:36.960 protest outside her home. This same wording was repeated by 0:18:37.040 --> 0:18:40.720 Rupert Murdocks, Sky News and the premiere of Western Australia 0:18:40.880 --> 0:18:41.520 Roger Cook. 0:18:42.040 --> 0:18:48.119 Woodside CEO. Mego O'Neil's family were terrified when climate extremists 0:18:48.240 --> 0:18:52.200 targeted her home during an aggressive protest on Tuesday morning. 0:18:52.480 --> 0:18:54.560 Mego O'Neil said in a statement that this was not 0:18:54.640 --> 0:18:58.639 a harmless protest. Such acts by extremists should be condemned 0:18:58.680 --> 0:19:00.280 by anyone who respects the law. 0:19:01.320 --> 0:19:04.800 Yet, despite O'Neill's description of the activists as extremist being 0:19:04.800 --> 0:19:08.240 repeated widely, accounts of what happened at O'Neill's home that 0:19:08.320 --> 0:19:12.000 morning differ. The activists have not been charged with trespass, 0:19:12.000 --> 0:19:14.840 only with the intent to commit an offense, and they 0:19:14.880 --> 0:19:17.679 say that counter terrorism police were already inside when they 0:19:17.760 --> 0:19:23.119 arrived outside O'Neill's home. O'Neill isn't just the CEO of Woodside, 0:19:23.160 --> 0:19:26.159 she's also the chair of the Australian Petroleum Production and 0:19:26.359 --> 0:19:30.920 Exploration Association or APR for short, an industry body whose 0:19:30.960 --> 0:19:34.080 members include some of the biggest fossil fuel companies based 0:19:34.119 --> 0:19:37.199 in Australia like Santos and Woodside, as well as some 0:19:37.240 --> 0:19:39.879 of the biggest fossil fuel companies in the world like 0:19:40.000 --> 0:19:44.720 BP Shell and O'Neill's former employer, ex and Mobile. A 0:19:44.760 --> 0:19:47.880 few weeks after O'Neill's press club address, APR opened its 0:19:47.880 --> 0:19:51.400 annual conference in Adelaide, South Australia, on Monday, the fifteenth 0:19:51.480 --> 0:19:55.320 of May. The conferences two principal partners were Woodside and 0:19:55.400 --> 0:19:58.080 ex and Mobile. On the fourth and final day of 0:19:58.119 --> 0:20:02.000 the conference, Thursday, the a eighteenth of May, South Australia's 0:20:02.040 --> 0:20:05.920 government suddenly rushed to introduce a new law. 0:20:06.600 --> 0:20:10.080 Protesters in South Australia could face three months in jail 0:20:10.200 --> 0:20:13.199 and a fifty thousand dollars fine under laws which have 0:20:13.320 --> 0:20:15.360 passed the state's lower house. 0:20:15.440 --> 0:20:19.440 Like Queensland three years earlier, South Australia's Labor government introduced 0:20:19.440 --> 0:20:22.680 the new legislation so quickly that legal experts say they 0:20:22.720 --> 0:20:27.480 had almost no opportunity to examine the potential human rights implications. 0:20:29.920 --> 0:20:32.720 In this episode, we've been looking at the criminalization of 0:20:32.840 --> 0:20:37.760 environmental protest and how it's been spreading around Australia. But 0:20:37.800 --> 0:20:40.639 that's not the only thing that's been spreading as climate 0:20:40.760 --> 0:20:44.040 change worsens. More and more climate change activists in Australia 0:20:44.119 --> 0:20:46.800 are speaking from personal experience, and. 0:20:46.760 --> 0:20:50.680 There was ash falling from the sky and leaves falling 0:20:50.720 --> 0:20:52.359 from the sky all over Greater Sydney. 0:20:52.920 --> 0:20:56.800 Sick smoke made outdoor protests more difficult in December twenty nineteen, 0:20:57.160 --> 0:21:00.280 but that didn't acter student activists from gathering out. I'd 0:21:00.320 --> 0:21:05.160 then Prime Minister Scott Morrison's official residence in Sydney. David Shubridge, 0:21:05.200 --> 0:21:07.560 who was now a Federal Senator for the Greens, went 0:21:07.640 --> 0:21:10.040 to the protest with his youngest daughter and was one 0:21:10.080 --> 0:21:11.640 of the people arrested on the day. 0:21:12.280 --> 0:21:16.040 After about two hours of a standoff, they just lined 0:21:16.119 --> 0:21:20.479 up the riot squad and just marched them in. You know, 0:21:21.119 --> 0:21:23.679 I remember them performing together. Reminded me a bunch of 0:21:23.680 --> 0:21:27.240 sort of puffed up turkeys. They went and then went 0:21:27.320 --> 0:21:29.760 in and surrounded all these four kids and started arresting 0:21:29.800 --> 0:21:30.520 them and moving them on. 0:21:32.080 --> 0:21:35.320 Shuebridge was previously a representative in the New South Wales 0:21:35.359 --> 0:21:38.879 Parliament when new laws restricting protests were rushed through in 0:21:38.920 --> 0:21:41.879 twenty twenty two. At the time, large parts of the 0:21:41.920 --> 0:21:48.120 state were underwater. A group known as the Knitting Manners 0:21:48.240 --> 0:21:51.080 have launched a constitutional challenge the laws in New South 0:21:51.080 --> 0:21:58.200 Wales courts. After Scott Morrison's federal Liberal National Coalition lost 0:21:58.200 --> 0:22:01.359 the twenty twenty two election, Australia now has a federal 0:22:01.440 --> 0:22:04.520 Labor government, which has also introduced a modest target of 0:22:04.560 --> 0:22:09.480 reducing emissions by forty three percent by twenty thirty. In Queensland, Victoria, 0:22:09.600 --> 0:22:12.800 Western Australia and South Australia, it's been labor state governments 0:22:12.800 --> 0:22:17.040 that have criminalized environmental protests. In New South Wales, Labor 0:22:17.080 --> 0:22:19.960 supported the new laws rushed through by the then Liberal 0:22:20.000 --> 0:22:23.040 government on the same night that many people's homes were 0:22:23.119 --> 0:22:23.919 under water. 0:22:24.840 --> 0:22:27.439 There's not a lot of self awareness in the state 0:22:27.560 --> 0:22:32.159 parliament about the kind of irony of putting in laws 0:22:32.200 --> 0:22:35.600 to arrest people for these minor you know, relatively minor 0:22:35.640 --> 0:22:40.440 inconveniences when the impacts of the climate crisis we're facing 0:22:40.600 --> 0:22:44.840 are causing not inconvenience, the loss of life, substantial loss 0:22:44.840 --> 0:22:47.760 of life, huge loss of property. I think the most 0:22:47.760 --> 0:22:53.240 recent floods created that the single largest insurance payout ever 0:22:53.600 --> 0:22:56.760 in Australia's history, billions and billions and billions of dollars. 0:22:57.640 --> 0:23:01.080 Scientists now say that the floods the news Whales's experience 0:23:01.119 --> 0:23:04.800 for two years after the catastrophic twenty nineteen and twenty 0:23:04.960 --> 0:23:08.280 twenty bush fires may have been made worse when the 0:23:08.440 --> 0:23:12.040 enormous amounts of smoke generated by those fires induced a 0:23:12.119 --> 0:23:16.200 three year Lannina. The La Nina finally lifted in March 0:23:16.280 --> 0:23:19.120 this year, and many Australians are now bracing for hotter, 0:23:19.240 --> 0:23:21.359 drier conditions as summer approaches. 0:23:22.160 --> 0:23:25.560 Oh High Little, Sorry to disappoint, but I won't be 0:23:25.640 --> 0:23:31.120 getting to this national sustainability event because of my bail conditions. 0:23:31.160 --> 0:23:34.240 They're actually zooming me in, so I'll be a big 0:23:34.280 --> 0:23:37.560 face on the screen. But I hope that it works 0:23:37.560 --> 0:23:38.360 out well anyway. 0:23:39.080 --> 0:23:41.760 I'm trying to find a time to talk to environmental activists. 0:23:41.800 --> 0:23:45.520 Violet Coco Is December twenty twenty two, and Violet is 0:23:45.520 --> 0:23:47.920 out on bail pending an appeal of a fifteen month 0:23:47.960 --> 0:23:51.040 prison sentence for a climate change protest that stopped car 0:23:51.280 --> 0:23:53.159 on the iconic Sydney Harbor Bridge. 0:23:54.359 --> 0:23:56.960 And so we're about to hit and El Nino again. 0:23:57.000 --> 0:23:58.960 We're about to go back into the fire season. We've 0:23:59.000 --> 0:24:00.800 just been in the web and now we're going to 0:24:00.800 --> 0:24:02.320 have fires oil over the country. 0:24:02.720 --> 0:24:05.760 In twenty twenty two, Coco joined a group of activists, 0:24:05.800 --> 0:24:08.440 including a firefighter, and shutting down a lane of traffic 0:24:08.480 --> 0:24:09.240 on the bridge. 0:24:09.400 --> 0:24:12.080 Now, firefighters still don't have the tools that they need 0:24:12.119 --> 0:24:14.040 to protect us, and that's what I was on the 0:24:14.040 --> 0:24:16.680 bridge for. I was on the bridge for our firefighters, 0:24:16.680 --> 0:24:19.760 saying we need to be ordering this equipment now because 0:24:20.160 --> 0:24:21.479 the fire season is coming. 0:24:22.440 --> 0:24:25.720 She tells me she became more involved in climate activism 0:24:25.800 --> 0:24:28.800 after previous bushfires. 0:24:29.960 --> 0:24:34.360 The country was on fire and my sister was pregnant 0:24:34.400 --> 0:24:38.640 at the time and she couldn't leave the house because 0:24:38.720 --> 0:24:41.639 the smoke was toxic to her and the baby. 0:24:42.359 --> 0:24:45.760 In March this year, a judge overturned Violet's fifteen month 0:24:45.840 --> 0:24:48.960 jail sentence, but in her home state of New South Wales, 0:24:49.040 --> 0:24:51.560 a new law that imposes up to two years prison 0:24:51.640 --> 0:24:56.680