Media Release: False and potentially defamatory statements by The West Australian rebutted by Disrupt Burrup Hub activists and Barrister

Note to journalists: WA Police have assigned bail conditions that prevent Matilda Lane-Rose, Gerard Mazza and Jesse Noakes from communicating. This has prevented them from issuing a single statement in response to the grossly misleading ‘journalism’ of The West.

Statement from Matilda Lane-Rose:

I am highly disappointed by the blatantly misleading and entirely inaccurate assertions put forward about myself and Gerard Mazza by The West Australian on 3 August.

My involvement with School Strike 4 Climate began in March 2019. My first ever interaction with Gerard Mazza took place many months later, in January 2020. Never once did I have a one-on-one conversation with Gerard in my years at Perth Modern School either on or off campus, nor did he teach me in a classroom setting.

The first-rate education that I had the privilege of receiving at Perth Modern School may have given me the knowledge, bravery and perseverance needed to voice the environmental concerns that I had harboured all my life - but I cannot thank any specific staff member at the school for this, and I am proud to say that my convictions are solely my own.

I did not learn that Gerard Mazza was a member of Disrupt Burrup Hub until running into him at a meeting nearly 2 months after I had expressed my interest in being in the group - if The West Australian had reached out and asked me when and why I signed up, I would have told them that it was exactly an hour after learning about Trent Rojhan’s action at the Woodside HQ on 13 February 2023, through an Instagram story posted by Disrupt Burrup Hub.

The labelling of my work with School Strike as “environmental extremism” is laughable - if it is considered “extremism”, then Australia must be home to hundreds of thousands of other environmental extremists, if the record turnouts that School Strike drew are anything to go by.

If you feel my action went too far or was aimed at intimidating Ms O’Neill in her place of residence, do you have the same empathy for 20 million people around the world that will lose their homes over the next 12 months due to fossil-fuel driven climate change?

The West Australian has also failed to correctly report that I was active with School Strike until late-2021, when I put my activism on pause due to the fact that I was heading towards my exam period for the 6 ATAR subjects I was studying. In total, I missed 4 days of school from 2019-2021 due to School Strike, all approved by the school.

 I am now proud to have pressed play once more in my fight for a future free of environmental degradation - a fight I have undertaken as a member of Disrupt Burrup Hub. I will continue to fight for this future as long as Woodside’s Burrup Hub continues to operate, due to its disastrous impacts on climate and culture.”

Statement from Gerard Mazza:

"Matilda's climate activism pre-dates my own. She was well-known in 2019 as one of the key organisers of the School Strike 4 Climate movement in WA.

"I became involved in climate activism after seeing the successes of School Strike 4 Climate and Extinction Rebellion in 2019. I was personally inspired by the millions of young people around the world taking leadership on the climate crisis by taking part in the School Strike 4 Climate movement. Like many other teachers and SSTUWA members, I took a day's leave without pay to join 13,000 people on the streets of Perth for the global School Strike in September 2019.

"I did not personally meet Matilda until summer 2020, when I was invited to a meeting to plan a (completely legal) protest vigil following the disastrous 2019-2020 summer bushfires. Matilda was present alongside other School Strike representatives and around 20 other people from the climate movement. Matilda and I were both involved (with many others) in planning the vigil.

"I never taught Matilda personally and she was not in any of my classes.

"Matilda was a member of Perth Modern School's Reconciliation Committee, sanctioned by the school and made up of both staff and students, which I coordinated in my role as Reconciliation Coordinator. This was our only contact in a school setting.

"I left Perth Modern School of my own accord at the end of 2020, in part because I wanted to dedicate myself to doing what I could to avert the worst of the climate crisis.

"I did not recruit Matilda to Disrupt Burrup Hub. She joined the organisation following Trent Rojahn's protest at the Woodside building earlier this year. As I understand, she had no knowledge of my involvement in the campaign at that time.

"It would not have been appropriate for me to prevent an adult from becoming involved in a protest organisation, just because there had been a previous professional relationship.

"The climate crisis is the biggest threat to the well-being of young people alive today."

Statement from Zarah Burgess, Lawyer for Disrupt Burrup Hub:

The West Australian's latest cover shows just how far the State’s most powerful interests are protected by that paper. When those powerful interests have nowhere else to hide, and no leg to stand on, they resort to smearing the names of two climate campaigners, for no reason other than to distract from the important cause that those campaigners are fighting for.

This morning, The West published false statements about the circumstances in which Ms Lane-Rose and Mr Mazza first met. Had they bothered to verify those circumstances with either party, they would have realised that Ms Lane-Rose was never taught by Mr Mazza, and had never even met him until a meeting between several climate groups in January 2020 – almost a year after she first became involved in that movement. They would also have been told that the two only met again more recently, two months after Ms Lane-Rose made enquiries about joining Disrupt Burrup Hub after seeing the highly publicised action against Woodside by Mr Trent Rojahn, in February 2023.

What is truly gross, however, is the not-so-implicit suggestion that Ms Lane-Rose was somehow groomed as a ‘Teacher’s Pet’ into ‘environmental extremism’. Aside from being potentially defamatory in relation to Mr Mazza, it robs an intelligent young woman of her own agency as a climate campaigner. Ms Lane-Rose is her own person, with her own views and the ability to exercise her right to protest in accordance with those views.

The earth has seen its hottest month on record, with The Guardian reporting just this morning that Australian politicians have been warned in a recent briefing of the ‘devastating climate-fueled disruption’ to follow – meanwhile, The West spends its media coverage spreading falsehoods about the people trying to wake us up to it.