An activist who allegedly forced 2500 Woodside Energy staff members to be evacuated from the company’s Perth headquarters has been placed under house arrest.
Disrupt Burrup Hub campaigner Kristen Morrissey was released on bail on Friday after appearing in Perth Magistrates Court charged with one count of act creating false apprehension as the existence of threats or danger.
The 49-year-old is accused of releasing a non-toxic stench gas called ethyl mercaptan in the lobby area of the oil and gas company’s building on Thursday.
Police and firefighters were called to the scene, with workers unable to return to their desk until later in the day.
Morrissey, who was protesting against Woodside’s plans to expand its gas operations on the Indigenous rock art-rich Burrup Peninsula in WA’s Pilbara region, was arrested at the scene and kept in police custody until her court appearance.
Magistrate Kevin Tavener expressed concern over the number of people the gas release had impacted and said Morrissey’s beliefs were such that the bail conditions may not stop her from attending other protests.
Outside court, Morrissey’s lawyer Zarah Burgess said the bail conditions were onerous and unusual.
No evidence of ‘adverse effects’
“There’s no evidence that police were able to put before the court today that there were any adverse effects on any of those 2500 people evacuated,” she said outside court.
Morrissey, a musician, was released on home bail and can only leave to attend work.
She said in a statement on Friday she had used harmless stench gas to sound an alarm about destructive danger posed by gas from Woodside’s Burrup Hub.
“Disrupt Burrup Hub will continue to safely sound the alarm about the dishonesty of the false claims by the WA government about Woodside’s Burrup Hub, already causing permanent damage to ancient, sacred Murujuga rock art and emitting 6 billion tons of CO2 over its lifetime,” she said.
The gas ethyl mercaptan can be used to alert underground mine workers to emergency situations.
Morrissey is scheduled to reappear in the same court on June 13.
The Burrup Peninsula, known as Murujuga to traditional owners, contains the world’s largest and oldest collection of petroglyphs.
Disrupt Burrup Hub wants the industrial development on the Burrup Peninsula, about 30km west of Karratha in the Pilbara region, to be stopped, including Woodside Energy’s expansion of the Pluto gas plant.
-AAP
