‘This is my one phone call from prison’: James Mathison jokes about arrest at tree protest

JAMES Mathison has spoken about his arrest after protesting the removal of century old trees, joking the interview was his “one phone call from prison”.

James Mathison gets taken away by police at the protest on Anzac Parade. Picture: Dylan Robinson

JAMES Mathison has spoken about his arrest after protesting the removal of century old trees, joking the interview was his “one phone call from prison”.

The television personality was among the crowd at Moore Park, in Sydney’s east, on Monday night who protested the removal of Moreton Bay fig trees to make way for light rail.

“Peter Cundall was unavailable so they called me,” he joked on Triple M’s Merrick and Australia program on Wednesday afternoon. “Cundall — he’s the bloody problem. If he just bloody turned up we wouldn’t have this dilemma.”

The former Australian Idol host said the crowd gathered around the area and engaged in “nonviolent resistance” but it wasn’t enough.

“These 130-year-old Moreton Bay figs were going to be chopped down, destroyed and I was like, ‘Screw it, somebody’s got to do something here’. So I tried to climb a fig tree.

“Now, my hammies aren’t as loose as they used to be. So that first big step I got up and from there, yeah, a tall police officer just yanked me down.”

James Mathison gets taken away by police after climbing one of the trees.

While Mathison, who lives in Sydney’s east, said it wasn’t the “smartest thing” he’s ever done, he thinks someone has to “put a line in the sand”.

“Unless people stand up when this stuff happens, the next time developers and governments go, ‘There’s just a bit of nature in the way, no one cared last time,’ they just roll through it the next time.”

Wrapping up the interview, host Merrick Watts jokingly suggested the trees be relocated to Manus Island, with Mathison replying: “Yeah (where they will be) treated inhumanely and set themselves on fire.”