Anti-Adani protesters push to have charges reduced after protest at Siemens office in Macquarie Park
Four people who were all charged in relation to a December 18 protest at Siemens’ Macquarie Park headquarters appeared in Burwood Court on Monday.
Northern District Times
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A group of anti-Adani campaigners who were arrested during a protest outside the Siemens building in Macquarie Park have applied to have their charges reduced.
Four people facing court — Jason Wu, Gillian Reffell, Sean Ghalayini and Juliet Lamont — staged a protest outside the courthouse on Monday.
Donning “Stop Adani” shirts, the group stood outside Burwood Local Court along with about 15 supporters just before 9am holding a sign which read ‘Siemens had us arrested while Australia burns #StopAdani.’
Each of them were charged with remaining on in-closed lands after being requested by the building manager to leave the site on Herring Rd on December 18.
The protester’s lawyer Cameron Murphy requested to have the charges reduced claiming they were not on a prescribed premises.
“The issue is my clients intend to plead guilty but we’ve got an issue about the charge because they’ve been charged with trespassing on prescribed premises but it was clearly not a prescribed premises,” he told the court.
“I’ve spoken to the prosecutor on this and understand we need some time to review that and see if they can be charged with a lesser charge.”
Police prosecutor Arnold agreed to look into it ahead of the next court appearance on February 17.
“It’s a narrow issue. That should be sufficient time,” she said.
Outside court another Stop Adani protester said: “They (protesters) were protesting against Siemens which is building the signalling system for the Adani coal train line.
“If they (Siemens) step away from the project then they couldn’t build the coal line and then they couldn’t build the coal mine,” she told The Northern District Times.
Siemens is contracted to supply railway signalling equipment for the Carmichael coal mine.
It follows protests held by Extinction Rebellion outside the Siemens headquarters in Munich last week.
Siemens chief executive Joe Kaeser responded at the time and said the company was going ahead and fulfilling its contractual obligations.
“Just finished our extraordinary Managing Board Meeting. We evaluated all options and concluded: We need to fulfil our contractual obligations. Also, we will establish an effective Sustainability Board to better manage environmental care in the future,” Mr Kaeser said on Twitter.