WA premier Roger Cook labels the ABC ‘complicit’ in filming climate protest at home of Woodside boss

Roger Cook says the ABC was ‘complicit’ after a TV crew attended an activist group’s protest at Woodside CEO’s home.

ABC Chair Ita Buttrose. Picture: Ryan Osland

West Australian premier Roger Cook has written an angry letter to ABC chair Ita Buttrose condemning its TV crew’s attendance at a climate activist protest outside the home of Woodside CEO Meg O’Neill and said the public broadcaster’s staff were “complicit”.

On Friday Mr Cook voiced his concerns in a two-page letter to Ms Buttrose and said the actions of the climate activist group Disrupt Burrup Hub to take part in a dawn protest outside the CEO’s family home were “completely unacceptable and should be condemned by everyone including the ABC”.

The ABC remains under intense pressure after a Four Corners TV crew happened to be at the front of Ms O’Neill’s home in the beachside suburb of City Beach on Tuesday morning at the same time a group of climate activists were protesting at the residence.

Premier Cook said he had also spoken with ABC managing director David Anderson about the incident and said the ABC’s conduct was unacceptable.

“I have been in public life long enough to understand the vital role the news media plays in a healthy democracy and the right of journalists to report the news without fear or favour,” Mr Cooke said in the letter.

“However, the fact that an ABC TV crew attended the private home of a WA citizen to document the committing of alleged criminal acts is cause for great concern and morally wrong.”

Woodside Energy CEO Meg O'Neill. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Nikki Short

The ABC was asked multiple times this week by The Australian if it was a Four Corners crew that was filming the protest, which it did not verify, before it later issued a statement confirming that was correct.

Mr Cook said in the letter, “it is difficult to comprehend how a TV crew could not understand how their presence at a private residence only encouraged these activists.

“It is doubtful ‘Disrupt Burrup Hub’ would have targeted a private residence if your TV crew was not present to publicise such appalling actions.

“Wittingly or unwittingly, the ABC was complicit.”

The ABC has maintained that there was no collusion between the ABC and the activist group.

“As we have said, the Four Corners team attended the protest action to gather material for a potential report later this year and had no knowledge what was at the address or that it was someone’s house,” an ABC spokeswoman said on Thursday.

“We have no other comment at this time.”

The Australian revealed on Friday that Woodside Energy demanded an explanation from the ABC about why Four Corners was attending another event organised by the climate activist group after it boasted on social media last month that a TV crew from the flagship investigative show would be filming for a “report on climate activism in Australia”.

Woodside notified the ABC including Four Corners’ executive producer Matthew Carney about the Facebook post – it was subsequently changed online to state that the July 25 event would instead be “filmed by media reporting on climate activism in Australia”.

The ABC was asked questions about this but would not answer them.

Communications minister Michelle Rowland has also sought additional information in relation to the incident outside the Woodside CEO’s home.

The activist group is trying to stop projects on the Burrup Peninsula in WA’s Pilbara region and has gloated online about the locations in WA that it has targeted including the “art gallery, Woodside HQ, Parliament House, Perth police station, and the footy, and caused a full evacuation of more than 2500 workers from Woodside HQ in Perth”.

Originally published as WA premier Roger Cook labels the ABC ‘complicit’ in filming climate protest at home of Woodside boss