Media Release: Office of WA Premier vandalised by Disrupt Burrup Hub vigilante opposing Browse Gas expansion of Woodside’s Burrup Hub

Thursday 11 April 2024 - For immediate release

A Disrupt Burrup Hub vigilante has vandalised the office of WA Premier Roger Cook with spray paint in the early hours of Thursday morning to encourage the WA government to refuse the Browse Gas expansion of Woodside’s Burrup Hub.

Footage supplied this morning shows an anonymous Disrupt Burrup Hub activist using white paint to spray the messages “Block Browse” and “Disrupt Burrup Hub” on the brick frontage of Roger Cook’s office in Kwinana below signage displaying the Premier’s name and face.

It comes as the WA Environmental Protection Authority is due to rule imminently on approvals for Woodside’s Browse Gas expansion of the Burrup Hub - which also requires approval from the federal Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek - only months after Premier Cook announced an overhaul of environmental protections in WA to fastrack industrial approvals by reducing the regulatory power of the EPA.

At the same time the WA Appeals Convenor is deciding whether to approve an extension for Woodside’s Burrup Hub until 2070, by which time new research released last month shows that its total emissions will generate 6 billion tonnes of CO2 and make Woodside’s Burrup Hub the largest new fossil fuel project in the Southern Hemisphere.

Today’s protest comes three weeks after the front of the nearby office of federal Resources Minister Madeleine King was vandalised with spray paint by an anonymous climate activist protesting King’s amendments to offshore gas legislation to fast-track industrial approvals and silence the voice of traditional custodians.

This renewed spray paint campaign targeting key decision-makers comes after the Disrupt Burrup Hub campaign launched in January 2023 with the primary objective of blocking the Browse gas expansion from ever being approved by branding Woodside’s Burrup Hub as Australia’s most toxic fossil fuel project.

Woodside are due to hold their AGM on April 24 in the face of shareholder and activist unrest over their climate record as they continue to pursue a punitive SLAPP suit against multiple Disrupt Burrup Hub campaigners for successfully evacuating Woodside’s corporate headquarters and attempting to evacuate Woodside’s 2023 AGM via hoax gas leaks.

A statement provided by the anonymous Disrupt Burrup Hub vigilante this morning says:

“Premier Cook and the WA government are willing to vandalise our few remaining environmental protections to allow gas projects like Woodside’s Burrup Hub to expand. Woodside's Browse Gas expansion threatens precious marine sanctuaries like the Kimberley's pristine Scott Reef. Woodside plans to pump the gas from Browse to the Burrup Hub, which research shows will emit 6 billion tonnes of CO2 emissions. The WA government wants to let Woodside expand and extend the Burrup Hub out to 2070 - threatening the world's climate and desecrating sacred Murujuga rock art. Premier Cook must Block Browse and Disrupt Burrup Hub.”

ENDS

Background:

The Burrup Peninsula in Western Australia is known as Murujuga to traditional custodians, a deeply sacred place that contains the largest, oldest collection of Aboriginal rock art in the world. This priceless cultural treasure is currently nominated for UNESCO world heritage listing, but the sacred songlines and stories contained in these carvings are being damaged by emissions from the Burrup Hub and face total destruction within decades. Woodside has previously been responsible for the destruction of around 5,000 sacred rock art sites in the construction of earlier parts of its Burrup Hub mega-project, including the Karratha Gas Plant and Pluto LNG processing facility.

Woodside's Burrup Hub is the biggest new fossil fuel project in Australia. It consists of the Scarborough and Browse Basin gas fields, the Pluto Project processing plant, and other linked liquified natural gas (LNG) and fertiliser plants on the Burrup Peninsula in WA’s remote northwest Pilbara region. The Burrup Hub is projected to produce more than 6 billion tons of CO2 by 2070, making it four times larger than the Adani coal mine and one of the biggest carbon bombs in the world.

On January 19 2023, Joana Partyka, a ceramic artist and illustrator from Perth, sprayed the Woodside logo in yellow paint on the colonial masterpiece ‘Down on His Luck’ at the Art Gallery of WA. The protest was subsequently endorsed by most descendants of ‘Down on His Luck’ painter Frederick McCubbin. On February 13, punk musician Trent Rojahn coated the Woodside building with a fire extinguisher full of high-pressure yellow paint and sprayed the slogan ‘Disrupt Burrup Hub’ across the glass at the entrance to Woodside’s corporate headquarters. On Tuesday, February 21, graphic designer and mum of two Tahlia Stolarski sprayed the Woodside logo six times in yellow paint on the front doors of WA Parliament.

On April 28, Gerard Mazza and Tahlia Stolarski were charged with Aggravated Burglary attempting to evacuate the Woodside AGM in Perth using harmless stench gas and smoke flares. On May 3, environmental activist Violet CoCo, the first person jailed under repressive new police powers legislation in New South Wales, sprayed the Woodside logo in yellow paint on the front of the Perth Police Centre in protest at the escalating police crackdown on climate protest in Western Australia. On May 20, musician and student Emil Davey invaded the pitch of an AFL game during Indigenous Round, sponsored by Woodside, disrupting play for several minutes with a large flag reading Disrupt Burrup Hub. 

On June 1, Disrupt Burrup Hub campaigner Kristen Morrissey safely evacuated Woodside’s corporate headquarters in Perth using harmless, non-toxic ‘stench gas’ to simulate a hoax gas leak, successfully evacuating several thousand Woodside workers and stopping work for the day. On August 1, 19-year-old campaigner Matilda Lane-Rose was ambushed by more than a dozen counter-terror police lying in wait outside the house of the Woodside CEO. On September 20, Ballardong Noongar man and Deputy Chair of the Deaths in Custody Watch Committee Desmond Blurton conducted a smoking ceremony and demanded answers outside the home of Woodside director and former WA Treasurer Ben Wyatt.

On December 11 2023, Disrupt Burrup Hub campaigner and veterinarian Marek ‘Maz’ Misiewicz parked a four-wheel drive in the Perth CBD and locked himself to a concrete barrel in the boot directly outside the office of federal offshore oil and gas regulator NOPSEMA to protest their pending approvals for the Browse and Scarborough gas fields at Woodside’s Burrup Hub.