What are your thoughts on this? I think I’m somewhat on the fence. I firmly believe in the right to protest and that the only effective protests are those that are truly disruptive, but I can also understand the argument that people have the right to feel safe in their homes. Protest rights have been slowly eroded over time in most Australian jurisdictions and so an act like this is sometimes what’s needed to affect change. There’s also the point to be made that the harm that people cause through business decisions doesn’t end at 5PM on a weekday, and we should have the right to protest individuals and their specific actions as well as the companies that they represent.
Thoughts?
The thrust of this article seemed top be: “everyone deserves to feel safe in their own home”.
I disagree. I want war criminals to feel unsafe everywhere, especially their homes.
Obviously I’m being hyperbolic here, but what about chevron execs who gave Ecuadorians cancer and then got their lawyer prosecuted.
The line between war criminal and oil baron is so blurred you will need corrective lenses.
This is a great point. There’s a spectrum of shitty human behaviour all the way from genocide through to playing loud music on a train, and I don’t think anyone agrees that genocidal people deserve to feel safe in their homes. The question then becomes, where do we draw the line on that spectrum? I think that’s a harder one to answer.
Exactly right. You deserve to reap what you sow. She deserves to reap what she sows, all of them do
I’m not comfortable with the actions targeting someone at their home. Maybe if they just stood in the street and held signs? But they never had any intention of doing that. I’m picturing protesters turning up at my place and terrorising my family. My kids wouldn’t understand why strangers were yelling outside and attacking the house.
The office is fair game. But the collateral damage risk for residential protests is too high. Even if the target lives alone, you don’t know who is living next door to your target and their emotional state.
The collateral damage from mining and fossil fuels has already done more damage to the planet than anything else since that meteor dropped in a few million years ago. I’m not worried about some kids getting scared. She knows what that company does, she doesn’t have to work there, she obviously enjoys the rewards that come with the job but now there’s some (incredibly tiny) risk she’s upset.
I guess the moral of the story is don’t do bad stuff and no one will come and protest at your house.
These people are used to being able to hide from the consequences of their actions behind well worded contracts and connections in the federal and state governments. She just found out how unpleasant it is when someone breaks the rules, which you could say large corporations have been doing for decades.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Academic, political and business leaders have weighed in on the prevalence of what they claim are “unacceptable” protest tactics, after four people were arrested after staging a demonstration at the family home of Woodside’s CEO.
WA Premier Roger Cook has also voiced ‘serious concern’ with the role the ABC played, with a television crew present outside Meg O’Neill’s house as the action took place on Tuesday morning.
Police told the court the incident was an escalation of protests by the Disrupt Burrup Hub group who have previously targeted Woodside’s corporate premises and state government property.
During a parliamentary committee hearing on Friday morning in Parliament House, Queensland Senator Matt Canavan asked Woodside’s executive vice president Mark Abbotsford if he had any comment to make about the protest.
It comes as five Greenpeace demonstrators were arrested on Thursday after draping the private home of British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in black fabric to protest his oil drilling policy.
“It is doubtful ‘Disrupt Burrup Hub’ would have targeted a private residence if your TV crew was not present to publicise such appalling actions’,” he wrote in the letter to Ms Buttrose.
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