Santos MD Kevin Gallagher says his home was also targeted by climate activists
Kevin Gallagher’s revelation his Adelaide home was targeted comes a month after protesters were arrested outside the Perth residence of Woodside Energy boss Meg O’Neill.
Santos managing director Kevin Gallagher has revealed climate activists targeted his Adelaide home earlier this year, the revelation coming a month after extremist protesters were arrested outside the Perth residence of Woodside Energy boss Meg O’Neill.
Mr Gallagher told Sky News that he had not felt personally threatened during the incident and had not called the police, but said the behaviour “crosses a line’’.
“I had a similar incident earlier this year with people outside my home in Adelaide, it wasn’t actually covered in the media and I don’t want to make a big story of it, but it’s not unusual,” Mr Gallagher said.
“The activists are using more and more intimidatory tactics. Outside our own offices in Adelaide every Monday morning we get a handful of protesters turn up, but the inference is we’re watching you, we’ve got our eyes on you to staff and to try and intimidate staff as they come to work
“I would say over the years we get varying levels of threats and things like that directed at us.
“It comes with the job and in my situation you sort of take that. You get nervous and you don’t like it when it crosses a line and it gets close to home and it impacts your family.”
Protesters have in the past defaced the Santos headquarters and blocked traffic in front of the building, and regularly protest outside the company’s annual meetings held in Adelaide.
Mr Gallagher said everyone had the right to express their views, but targeting people’s homes was unacceptable.
“If it’s the workplace I’m perfectly comfortable and at the end of the day everybody’s got the right to a voice, but I think you’ve got to keep those personal family lines separated,” he said.
Four Disrupt Burrup Hub protesters were arrested following the incident outside Ms O’Neill’s house in the Perth suburb of City Beach in early August, which occurred at 6.45am.
That incident triggered an internal investigation at the ABC, after it was revealed that a Four Corners film crew was in attendance.
The incident sparked a wave of condemnation, with Communications Minister Michelle Rowland and Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong expressing concern at the time, and Ms Rowland demanding an explanation from the ABC as to how the crew happened to be there at the same time as the protesters.
Opposition communications spokesman David Coleman called for a Senate inquiry into the matter.
After initially refusing to identify the crew as a Four Corners team and then saying that the crew had no idea of what was to eventuate that morning, the ABC initiated an internal review which a week and a half later found that those public statements were incorrect.
The ABC issued a statement late on a Friday afternoon which said: “The review does indicate the team did have some awareness of what was planned.
“To that extent, the element of the previous statement issued by the ABC concerning knowledge of what specific actions might occur prior to the event did not reflect all relevant information subsequently available and was incorrect.
“We will be investigating how this inaccuracy arose further to ensure it does not happen again.’’
The ABC also said it would be “reviewing and, if necessary, updating its editorial guidance about when mandatory upward referral is needed to appropriate senior management’’.
Ms O’Neill later was granted violence restraining orders against the four activists.
The Disrupt Burrup Hub group is protesting the expansion of energy projects on the Burrup Peninsula, with Woodside targeting eight million tonnes a year of new gas from offshore wells.
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