FIFO cops: WA police are steamrolling climate activists

On February 24, Disrupt Burrup Hub (DBH) campaigner Joana Partyka’s home was raided by Western Australian police. She wasn’t arrested, wasn’t charged, but was told that the raid was being undertaken under “suspicion of criminal damage” and “conspiracy to commit an indictable offence”.

A month prior Partyka had spray-painted the Woodside logo onto Frederick McCubbin’s Down on His Luck at the Art Gallery of Western Australia. She was arrested, detained, charged with one count of criminal damage, and released on bail. She pleaded guilty to the charge on February 10 and paid the fine, believing that was the end of it. But on this warm February morning, watching the police move through her apartment to seize her phone and laptop, she was uncertain as to whether they were there because of this past action or, more disconcertedly, some future one.

Six months later, she still doesn’t have her phone or laptop back, or know the answer to that question.

This was just one of the many raids the WA police force made on Partyka and her fellow Disrupt Burrup Hub campaigners. These raids, the seizure of phones and laptops, and what campaigners suspect is the bugging of their homes and communication devices are part of WA Police’s ongoing war against climate activists, a war being fought with increasing aggression on behalf of the state government and their business partners, Woodside. 

It’s not as though the activists weren’t expecting the police — indeed, their protests are designed to attract them. But the police force’s response is so extreme as to warrant consideration. By tracing the escalating actions of both sides, we begin to see a clear portrait of targeted, ongoing and politicised harassment.

On April 30, Disrupt Burrup Hub attempted to clear out a Woodside event at Perth’s convention centre with a stink bomb. Three campaigners were arrested, and two were charged with aggravated burglary with intent. All three had their homes raided while they were in custody, even though the third campaigner was released without charge. The two that were charged were denied bail and held overnight, then released the next day. Sophie McNeill, then with Human Rights Watch, described this overnight imprisonment as very alarming, and part of an emerging pattern of disproportionate penalties for climate protestors. 

As Partyka had in March, these campaigners refused to obey a data access order. For this refusal, Partyka will be put on trial in September; for these others, future court dates similarly loom. Despite this, the campaigners were not deterred, and continued a campaign of disruption and graffiti while adapting to the persistent attention and growing aggression of the police. 

The group’s actions came to a head on June 1, when DBH managed to fully evacuate Woodside’s headquarters in the CBD with stench gas — essentially a harmless stink bomb which mimics the smell of natural gas. The campaigner who released the gas was arrested on the scene, denied bail, held overnight, then released on bail the next day. While in custody, her home was raided. She was charged with one count of doing an act to cause a false belief and one count of acts or omissions causing bodily harm or danger. Bail conditions include house arrest (except work). On June 2, while driving home after being released on bail, her car was intercepted by police, who seized her phone and laptop.  

Partyka was not involved in this action, nor was she anywhere near the scene. But on June 12, both her apartment and her ex-husband’s house were raided by police. Her (new) laptop and phone were seized. She was arrested, denied bail, and held overnight, to be released the next day after facing the magistrate. She was charged with one count of doing an act to cause a false belief, and one count of acts or omissions causing bodily harm or danger — the exact same charges as the person who undertook the action. Police alleged she shared criminal responsibility. She and the other campaigner were handed a non-association order. 

That same day, three other DBH campaigners were raided, arrested and detained for hours, their devices seized. All were released without charge later that day. Partyka and these three were served with data access orders, with which three of them (including Partyka) refused to comply. 

At this point, Partyka was at her limit. She was exhausted, traumatised and paranoid. The WA police were as vague as they were menacing with their charges and allegations, and it seemed as if they had made her and the other campaigners their pet project. She told me it feels as if the police, the state and Woodside are conspiring to crush them, dismantle their lives, make their very existence untenable. 

On July 9, the police turned up at Partyka’s property again. They bumped up the bodily harm charges to a total of seven counts. Their “evidence” of harm included one of the evacuated office workers taking a Panadol to treat a headache. The co-accused were also served with this revised number of charges. 

A week ago, on August 1, DBH attempted to spray-paint the home of Woodside CEO Meg O’Neill in the early morning. But counterterror police were waiting, and ambushed them. Three people were arrested on the scene, and two were arrested later. The usual routine: homes raided, devices seized, released on bail, are banned from associating with each other and other key campaigners.

Matilda Lane-Rose, 19, was dragged through the state’s sole newspaper, The West Australian, which has come to operate as a mouthpiece for the mining industry, and as such dutifully painted the teenager as public enemy number one. 

No-one who is at all familiar with the politics of WA’s mining boom, the power of the mining industry, and the purpose of the WA police force should be surprised by any of this. 

To put it plainly, the WA police force, like the state government, has always worked for the benefit of the mining industry. Throughout the boom, WA Police became the industry’s enforcers, simultaneously going hard and fast on climate activists, while maintaining the appropriate level of violence required to “clean up” Perth’s skyrocketing homelessness crisis, while also corralling the young cashed-up workforce dependant on the release of booze, drugs, and whatever else was required to deal with the stress of the FIFO lifestyle.

Under Karl O’Callaghan at the height of the boom, Chris Dawson from 2017 to 2022, and now Col Blanch, the Western Australian police appeared to protesters to take on the air of private contractors, willing to divert any and all resources on behalf of the government, who themselves act diligently on the behalf of the mining industry, to obliterate anything that could be perceived as a threat to said industry, no matter how minuscule that threat may be.

This is how WA must operate if it is to continue to function as is. While WA toils away at the coalface of environmental destruction and ecological collapse, it must keep an increasingly agitated, increasingly aware and increasingly concerned citizenry in line if it is to continue with business as usual. 

What becomes clear when laying out the timeline of raids and arrests of DBH activists is how effective this mercenary mode of policing is at stamping out anti-mining dissent and action. Talking to Partyka, you get a sense of someone being ground down beneath a boot heel as immense as a caterpillar truck’s tyre. These are young, passionate, desperate people, committing crimes on par with teenage pranksters at schoolies week, being treated as though they are some sort of inner-suburb eco-ISIS.

It would be laughable if you can forget what’s at stake. 

Their treatment at the hands of WA’s police is something that should concern — terrify — all of us, as we lurch into these early years of the now inevitable climate apocalypse. It is hard to be told that a 19-year-old girl attempting to tag the home of a mining CEO is tantamount to the crime of the century when you consider the blasted hellscape our future holds because of said CEO and people like her.

If this is the way the state and these companies wield the law and the police at this early, relatively peaceful juncture in this affair, you have to wonder how they’ll deploy them as things grow worse.

Is the response of WA Police to climate activists fair and reasonable, or does it go too far? Let us know your thoughts by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.