A Western Australian Greens staffer and activist excluded from the Land Forces Expo in Perth has been granted temporary access after legal representatives threatened court action against the police ban.
Matilda Lane-Rose will be allowed into the security area around the Perth Exhibition and Convention Centre between 8am and 6pm on Tuesday. She will remain on the exclusion list, however, with the ban due to take effect again after 8pm that evening.
The Human Rights Law Centre and SCALES Community Legal Centre took the matter to the Supreme Court over the weekend. Lane-Rose intends to continue challenging the decision, although the case is not expected to be heard until next week.
“My name is still on this list, so that is why I will be continuing to pursue my case in the Supreme Court of WA to challenge the decision that landed me on this list in the first place,” she said.
Lane-Rose said she planned to help her employer, Greens MP Sophie McNeill, create content outside the expo on Tuesday. McNeill has previously said people such as Lane-Rose did not meet the threshold for being considered a serious threat to the community.
Several people, including Rising Tide and Disrupt Burrup Hub activist Will Shanahan, were placed on the WA Police exclusion list and barred from entering the area around the defence exhibition.
Police said decisions about access were made individually and only when officers were satisfied that attendance would not pose a risk to others. A spokeswoman said the threshold was deliberately high to maintain a safe environment for attendees, workers, exhibitors, protesters and the wider community.
WA Police Minister Reece Whitby said on Friday that the threshold for exclusion had been set “very high to be an excluded person, and for very good reason”.
“We don’t want to see violence. We don’t want to see people at risk, and that is the basis on which people are being excluded,” he said.
WA Premier Roger Cook said on Monday he was not aware of anyone being removed from the exclusion list but was confident the police decisions would withstand scrutiny. He said people had the right to protest, provided they did so respectfully and safely.
Lane-Rose, who now works for the WA Greens and is studying law, was fined over a planned protest at the home of former Woodside chief executive Meg O’Neill. She and co-accused Jesse Noakes, Gerard Mazza and Emil Davey pleaded guilty to attempted trespass and attempted unlawful damage.
The arrest was filmed by an ABC Four Corners crew working on a report about climate activism. Perth Magistrates Court heard the group had been captured on CCTV inspecting the home 72 hours before the planned protest.
Land Forces is Australia’s biggest defence expo, bringing senior members of the nation’s defence force and academia together with major international weapons manufacturers. The WA Anti-War Collective is due to march through Perth on Tuesday from Yagan Square to Elizabeth Quay.
