Disrupt Burrup Hub campaigners banned from associating or protesting following more counter-terror raids for conspiracy re Woodside ‘stench gas’ evacuation hoax
12.00pm AWST - Central Law Courts, Perth
Good afternoon,
Disrupt Burrup Hub campaigner Kristen Morrissey, who has spent two weeks under house arrest after successfully forcing a full evacuation of Woodside’s Perth HQ using harmless, non-toxic ‘stench gas’, faced a Perth court this morning where she had further indictable charges raised against her and was granted bail.
Ms Morrissey has been charged with one count of Doing an Act to Cause a False Belief. She will next face court on July 20. Magistrate Kevin Tanever enforced bail conditions including a ban on Ms Morrissey attending or being within 100 metres of any protests.
Ms Morrissey’s house arrest condition remains in place.
Fellow Disrupt Burrup Hub campaigner Joana Partyka, who earlier this year defaced an iconic Frederick McCubbin painting with a Woodside logo, also faced court this morning on conspiracy charges allegedly relating to the successful Woodside evacuation and was granted bail. The Magistrate determined she is not allowed to associate with Ms Morrissey after Ms Partyka’s barrister Zarah Burgess described the case brought by police alleging “indirect criminal liability” as “very tenuous”.
The new charges follow raids by WA State Security counter-terror police at five residential premises yesterday and the seizure of electronic devices belonging to at least seven people, demanding passwords and data access from people who were not arrested and with no connection to the Disrupt Burrup Hub campaign.
Ms Morrisey safely evacuated the headquarters of gas company Woodside on June 1 with a hoax “gas leak” using harmless, non-toxic ethyl mercaptan “stench gas”, normally used to sound the alarm about industrial emergencies. Ms Partyka was not in attendance near Woodside on the day of the action in question.
Although police alleged in court that Woodside employees suffered ill effects from the stench gas, they only produced evidence of minor, transitory symptoms in four employees, none of whom attended a hospital and at least three of whom are senior Woodside executives or managers.
Disrupt Burrup Hub’s use of harmless ethyl mercaptan stench gas to safely evacuate thousand of workers Woodside corporate headquarters headquarters came less than a week after Woodside endangered its own workers in an unplanned explosion at the Pluto gas facility at the Burrup Hub, leading to confirmed reports of multiple injuries. It also came the day before the tragic death of a subcontractor employee at one of Woodside’s offshore gas fields connected to the Burrup Hub.
Following the evacuation, Ms Morrissey was held in custody overnight as police strenuously opposed bail. On June 2, Magistrate Kevin Tanever granted bail, placing Ms Morrissey under house arrest.
Ms Partyka was released on bail today after spending last night detained in custody.
In court today, defence barrister Zarah Burgess appearing for Kristen Morrissey and Joana Partyka said:
“Ethyl mercaptan is commonly used in mine site ventilation systems as an alert for emergency evacuations. The average exposure levels in the Woodside building were less than 0.15 milligrams per cubic metre, based on our calculations from the Safety Data Sheet. The maximum permissible exposure in an industrial setting is 1.3 milligrams per cubic metre. That means you’d need nine canisters, not one, to pass the minimum dangerous threshold set by Australian regulators. We have advice from a former Head of Public Health in this state that the safety profile of the substance and the quantities involved it is highly unlikely that employees were put at risk.”
Kristen Morrissey, who has been granted bail, said after her court appearance this morning:
“I’ve been banned from protesting for creating a bit of a stink. I would never knowingly hurt a living creature. You know what really stinks? Woodside. It hurts people all the time. Workers have recently been impacted in numerous major safety incidents on Woodside worksites. Air pollution from the fossil fuel industry is responsible for millions of deaths each year. And the impacts on future generations will be enormous.
“Woodside’s Burrup Hub is going to pump out 6 billion tons of CO2 over its lifetime. That is 12 times Australia’s entire annual emissions. If we allow companies like Woodside to keep doing what they want, global heating caused by burning fossil fuel will kill billions and destroy Australia’s fragile ecology. So we sounded the alarm with a smelly prank to mimic the very real, very dangerous gas attack Woodside deploys every day at the Burrup Hub.”
Former Head of Public Health and Clinical Tutor at Curtin University Medical School Dr Colin Hughes put before the court an affidavit stating that the risk to employees from ethyl mercaptan exposure was extremely low. Following court, Dr Colin Hughes said:
“Stench gas is commonly used in underground ventilation systems as an alert gas for emergency evacuations. The powerful odour can be quickly dispersed throughout an underground mine to alert workers of impending danger.”
Ethyl mercaptan is a naturally occurring substance found in humans and causes the unpleasant smell found in those suffering from halitosis and in the urine after consuming large quantities of asparagus. It is used as an additive in natural gas to warn of leakages. You smell it every time you light your gas stove. You smell it every time you fill your car with petrol.”
Kristen Morrissey outside Perth Magistrates Court.
Background:
The Burrup Peninsula in Western Australia is known as Murujuga to traditional custodians, a deeply sacred place that contains the largest, oldest collection of Aboriginal rock art in the world. This priceless cultural treasure is currently nominated for UNESCO world heritage listing, but the sacred songlines and stories contained in these carvings are being damaged by emissions from the Burrup Hub and face total destruction within decades. Woodside has previously been responsible for the destruction of around 5,000 sacred rock art sites in the construction of earlier parts of its Burrup Hub mega-project, including the Karratha Gas Plant and Pluto LNG processing facility.
Woodside's Burrup Hub is the biggest new fossil fuel project in Australia. It consists of the Scarborough and Browse Basin gas fields, the Pluto Project processing plant, and other linked liquified natural gas (LNG) and fertiliser plants on the Burrup Peninsula in WA’s remote north-west Pilbara region. The Burrup Hub is projected to produce more than 6 billion tons of CO2 by 2070, making it four times larger than the Adani coal mine and one of the biggest carbon bombs in the world.
On January 19, Joana Partyka, a ceramic artist and illustrator from Perth, sprayed the Woodside logo in yellow paint on the colonial masterpiece ‘Down on His Luck’ at the Art Gallery of WA. The protest was subsequently endorsed by most descendants of ‘Down on His Luck’ painter Frederick McCubbin. On February 13, punk musician Trent Rojahn coated the Woodside building with a fire extinguisher full of high-pressure yellow paint and sprayed the slogan ‘Disrupt Burrup Hub’ across the glass at the entrance to Woodside’s corporate headquarters. On Tuesday February 21, graphic designer and mum of two Tahlia Stolarski sprayed the Woodside logo six times in yellow paint on the front doors of WA Parliament.
On April 28, Gerard Mazza and Tahlia Stolarski were charged with Aggravated Burglary ting to evacuate the Woodside AGM in Perth using harmless stench gas and smoke flares. On May 3, environmental activist Violet CoCo, the first person jailed under repressive new police powers legislation in New South Wales, sprayed the Woodside logo in yellow paint on the front of the Perth Police Centre in protest at the escalating police crackdown on climate protest in Western Australia.
