A local extreme protest has dragged in the national broadcaster to an embarrassing national debate.
Everyone wants to know why the ABC didn’t call the police…
The climate activists turned up at the family home of Meg O’Neill at 6:50 am on Tuesday morning in Perth, Western Australia. They had spray paint and padlocks because she’s the CEO of Woodside Energy which will, in their words “emit 6 billions tonnes of carbon over the next fifty years”. Police say CCTV footage shows they had already done surveillance on the house to find out what time she left for work. O’Neill lives with her partner Vicky Hayes* and teenage daughter and was described as “shaken” by the incident.
For some reason, the national public broadcaster, the ABC, was coincidentally also there to film the likely criminal activity at this unlikely hour, but having filmed it, for some other reason, they didn’t show the footage or even report the incident at all on the ABC News Tuesday night, while it made headlines around the state and was “the biggest news of the day”.
Woodside on Tuesday pointed to the camera crew’s presence to show the home invasion was “an organised and deliberate act designed to intimidate Ms O’Neill and her family’’.
The idea of menacing families at home is usually something the Mafia does. Pretty much everyone, except the ABC apparently, could see why this could be a criminal act. Indeed, two of the leading protestors were already on bail. The police were watching them, and were at the house ready to ambush them at 6.40am. Who was more surprised in that moment — the Police that the suspects came with the ABC, or the ABC, that the police were already there before them?
The police arrested the activists, two of whom spent the night in jail. They’ve since faced court and been bailed (again). The Magistrate says she believed the case had “a reasonable prospect of conviction”.
But the big question remains — The Australian, and The West Australian and the state Premier in Parliament are all asking what the ABC was doing there. The broadcaster was there in a suburb ready to film a dawn protest with vandals seeking to terrorize a family and possibly damage their home?
The WA Premier wants answers from the ABC:
– The West Australian
Mr Cook said it was “simply not good enough if what has taken place … is that there was a conspiracy to withhold details of this unlawful action from the police”.
“Given that they knew that this action was going to involve going to someone’s private home, I think anyone would be appalled if that sort of action was known about and wasn’t acted upon,” he said. –
So the ABC excuses flow, and it just gets worse
Incredibly, the ABC flew in a film crew all the way from Sydney on the other side of Australia, but say they didn’t know it was a private home, and didn’t know it belonged to the Woodside boss.
ABC won’t explain why it did not report arrest of activists outside Woodside boss Meg O’Neill’s private home
Shannon Hampton, The West Australian
The ABC claims it had no idea climate activists were planning to target a house — or that it was the home of Woodside boss Meg O’Neill — when a 4Corners film crew was given a tip to attend an address in City Beach.
The national broadcaster issued a fresh statement on Wednesday finally addressing the furore amid pressure to explain after Disrupt Burrup Hub protesters targeted Ms O’Neill’s family home with an ABC film crew in tow.
It confirmed the crew, which is understood to have flown in from Sydney, was filming for 4Corners and attended the property to “gather material for a potential report later this year”.
Presumably the ABC send crews on 4,000 kilometer trips all the time without bothering to do two more seconds of research. That’s what tax dollars are for!
If we don’t shut the ABC down for colluding with people planning potentially criminal things, we should shut them down for criminal waste of taxpayer money.
The ABC say they got a tip off “just prior to the action” — as you do, you know — before gathering a film crew and jumping on a five hour flight. As it happens, they claim the police were already there when they arrived, and they didn’t trespass and they didn’t collude.
If you chain someone’s gate to stop them leaving, is that a siege?
The details look bad.
Protesters planned to chain themselves to Woodside boss’ house, police allege
Rebecca Peppiatt, WAToday
[WA Police prosecutor Kim Briggs] said the protesters, who are part of an activist group called Disrupt Burrup Hub, planned to damage the property and stop the Woodside boss from leaving.
“The intention of the group was to damage the property using spray paint and lock themselves [to a gate] with a D-lock to hinder the ability of Ms O’Neill to leave the property,” he said.
Two activists were already on bail
To make things even worse for the ABC, two of the activists was already on bail for a previous incident of climate extremism at the Woodside AGM. If only the ABC had “the internet” and had looked up Jesse Noakes and Gerard Mazza they would have know what a high risk event this might be?
In June, Mr Noakes was charged with aggravated burglary with intent and refusing to obey a data order stemming from an alleged protest at Woodside’s AGM in Perth Convention and Exhibition Centre.
— Sarah Steger, The West Australian
Indeed, this was so high risk, the WA Police were watching the activists and were ready at the house on the day. Six police officers stormed out of the house to ambush the protesters who had turned up “with the ABC in tow”.
Mr Noakes said his only role that morning was to lead a convoy of four ABC TV crews to the house and observe the protest.
— Sarah Steger, The West Australian
Surely that’s a misprint. It must be four ABC people? But it’s still an expensive team to fly on a return trip across a continent when you don’t know who they’re talking to, what they’re going to do, or where it is going to happen, eh?
Either the ABC is innocent but utterly incompetent, or they are colluding in intimidation for political gain.
*Corrected: Her husband turned out to be a wife.