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Why Australia’s answer to Greta Thunberg is facing years behind bars
At 19, this climate activist is now facing serious legal consequences over a foiled protest outside the home of the boss of an energy giant in Western Australia. Here's why she still believes she's on the right side of history.
Published 12 October 2023 5:40am
Updated 12 October 2023 10:59am
By Tessa Fox
Source: SBS News
Image: Climate activist Matilda Lane-Rose. (Supplied / Sampson McCrackan)
Even as a young kid in school, Matilda Lane-Rose always spoke up when she saw injustices in the playground.
Later, at the age of 15, she'd stand in front of hundreds of students engaged in the with a megaphone.
For her, the anxieties and fears held of the future amid climate change were relatable, and seeing someone the same age taking action was empowering.
“I just decided I'm going to do something to stop this rather than just accept it,” Lane-Rose told SBS News on her decision to campaign for climate justice.
“It just felt natural.”
Five years later, Lane-Rose has become a prominent young climate activist, and the university student, now 19, faces a charge of conspiracy to commit an indictable offence. She's also been slapped with a violence restraining order, had her home raided and possessions seized and been banned from associating with fellow campaigners.
These legal repercussions followed Lane-Rose being surrounded by more than a dozen counter-terrorism police as she stepped out of a car in front of energy-giant Woodside Director Meg O’Neill’s Perth home on 1 August.
The foiled solo protest was to be part of a string of actions organised by Disrupt Burrup Hub, which is fighting to halt Woodside Energy’s expansion on Murujuga Country in Western Australia's Burrup Peninsula through direct action campaigning.
Lane-Rose joined the group in March this year, a week before meeting the rest of the campaigners at a Climate Camp south of Perth.
Lane-Rose said she wasn’t expecting to be immediately arrested as she arrived.
Matilda Lane-Rose attending a School Strike for Climate rally in 2019, when she was 15 years old. Source: Supplied / Matilda Lane-Rose
“I didn't really [have time] to feel fear … it was such a nervous lead up to arriving at the house that morning ... there was so much adrenaline coursing through me, [without that] I would have been absolutely terrified,” Lane-Rose said.
Climate activism and Australia's right to protest
State governments have started taking stronger action against disruptive protests.
was the first person to be handed a prison sentence in December last year for blocking traffic on the Sydney Harbour Bridge under new laws passed by NSW.
The state introduced penalties before her arrest targeting people whose actions disrupt businesses and economic activity such as by blocking roads and ports, with up to two years in maximum security prison and $22,000 in fines.
Alongside NSW, in the past five years, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria and Queensland have all passed laws against disruptive protests carrying severe penalties.
Human Rights Law Centre (HRLC) senior lawyer David Mejia-Canales told SBS News: “These laws are not only anti-protest, but they are also anti-people.”
“Australia’s democracy is stronger when people protest on issues they care about… the overreaching actions of governments to protect fossil fuel companies is an attack on our right to peaceful protest and our right to a healthy environment,” Mejia-Canales said.
After being released from custody, Lane-Rose was banned from associating with six people in the Disrupt Burrup Hub campaign. Source: Supplied / Sampson McCrackan
A spokesperson for the WA government told SBS News, considering Lane-Rose’s matter is before the courts, it would be “inappropriate” to comment, adding: “The state government acknowledges that people have the right to protest peacefully and respectfully.”
After being released from custody, as a condition of her bail, Lane-Rose was banned from associating with six people in the Disrupt Burrup Hub campaign, which she described as being “intensely isolating.”
“I felt like I couldn't talk about [what had happened] with anyone which was probably why those bail conditions were in place,” Lane-Rose said.
Describing herself as being a “stickler” in school, and the type of student who would remind the teacher there was homework due, Lane-Rose is grateful for the support of her parents.
“No mother ever wants to see her daughter getting hauled off by cops [and] arrested … but they know what I’m doing is for a good cause,” she said.
Lane-Rose speaking at a School Strike for Climate rally in 2019. Source: Supplied / Matilda Lane-Rose
Mejia-Canales said the orders “go far beyond what can possibly be justified".
“Woodside should drop these undemocratic orders now,” he said.
Responding to SBS News’ interview request, a Woodside spokesperson said the company supports “respectful, open and robust debate as we progress through the energy transition".
“We do not support illegal activity and invasion of personal privacy,” the spokesperson said, before pointing to Woodside’s .
"Woodside condemns unlawful acts that are intended to threaten, harm, intimidate or disrupt our employees or any other member of the community going about their daily lives," the statement says.
"We believe these actions should be met with the full force of the law.
"It is misleading for extreme groups to describe their activities as “harmless”. Recent incidents have had deliberate direct impacts on people and risk community safety, with a range of harmful consequences."
Lane-Rose believes that much of the damage from climate change will be felt abroad, and points to the fossil fuel companies with headquarters in Perth as being responsible.
“We’re fighting the people on our home soil who are stuffing it up for everyone else around the world,” she said.
Last year, the that the "huge human cost of the climate crisis is being ignored".
“We are faced with an intolerable tide of people moving from their homes due to the impacts of climate change,” he said.
Disrupt Burrup Hub: First Nations perspectives
First Nations voices are at the forefront of the Disrupt Burrup Hub campaign.
, with some of the petroglyphs estimated to be more than 45,000 years old.
In September, Ballardong Noongar community leader and Disrupt Burrup Hub campaigner Desmond Blurton conducted a smoking ceremony outside Woodside director and former WA Treasurer Ben Wyatt’s home, and called for answers as to why Wyatt would allow the destruction of Murujuga.
Ballardong Noongar community leader and Disrupt Burrup Hub campaigner Desmond Blurton. Source: Supplied / Disrupt Burrup Hub
“The oldest conservationist in the world is Aboriginal people such as myself, we have kept this land pristine for thousands and thousands of years, but it only took the colonisers a couple hundred years to desecrate our land and our culture,” Blurton said.
“I applaud people like [Lane-Rose] standing up for tribal land alongside us, and I know that my ancestors applaud her as well.”
A WA police spokesperson said patrols had been made at the time of Blurton's protest but “no offences had been detected".
Lane-Rose: People will look back on climate protesters 'in a very different light'
If found guilty, Lane-Rose currently faces three years imprisonment if the case is dealt with summarily in the Magistrates Court.
The prosecution is expected to argue to have her charges moved to the District Court in the next hearing on 7 November. If convicted in the District Court, Lane-Rose would potentially face a five-year sentence.
Despite the gravity of the potential sentencing, Lane-Rose doesn’t feel it will have much of an impact on her future work opportunities, considering she sees herself working for a human rights or environmental organisation.
“I just don't think I'm ever going to be the sort of person who wants to compromise my values,” she said.
Lane-Rose believes people will look back at climate protesters differently in future. Source: Supplied / Matilda Lane-Rose
“I think [decades] into the future people are going to look back at myself and other climate protesters, and see what we're doing in a very different light,” she said.
In the time since August, she has reflected on her actions and the impact her own planned protest allegedly had on O’Neill.
“I think it is uncomfortable when you're held to account for … doing bad things, like it was uncomfortable for me to be arrested and have my house raided,” she said.
Ultimately, Lane-Rose still believes her action was justified.
“I can go to bed at night and feel sound with my decision," she said.
