Meet Moira Williams, ex-Getup! protester

The anti-Adani protester who interrupted Annastacia Palaszczuk has GetUp! ties.

Moira Williams handing out ‘Dump Dutton’ cards last year.

The anti-Adani protester who stormed the stage during Queensland Premier Annastacia Pala­szczuk’s first speech of the state election campaign is a former ­inner-western Sydney campaigner who defends the hiring of professional anti-coal demonstrators and has ties to GetUp!.

Moira Williams, one of the protesters holding a “#StopAdani banner” whom security removed from the stage while Ms Palaszczuk was mid-speech on Sunday, moved to Queensland in 2014 and campaigned for the Mackay Conservation Group, one of the bodies trying to overturn approvals for Adani’s Carmichael coal project in the courts.

While in Mackay Dr Williams, an ecologist, worked alongside Ellen Roberts, who is now the state’s lead organiser for GetUp! and who is listed as authorising the main stopadani.com website.

Website registration records say that internet address is owned by Getup! Ltd, and the activist body says it has provided staff and resources to help groups protest under the #StopAdani banner.

GetUp! said it had no involvement in Ms William’s actions nor another demonstration at Ms ­Palaszczuk’s campaign stop in ­Airlie Beach yesterday, but ­welcomed the “spotlight” on the anti-Adani message. “This was not a GetUp!-prompted or organised protest, ­although we think it’s very important for Adani to be in the election spotlight,” a GetUp! spokeswoman said yesterday.

“Stop Adani is a diverse movement with hundreds of organisations and thousands of individuals involved in the ­campaign — of course we have no authority over them.”

Yesterday morning, Ms ­Palaszczuk’s interview with Sky News was interrupted by another protester, who was hauled away by her security detail.

“I didn’t know whether I was personally going to be tackled; I think we live in a democracy, and people should be respectful,” Ms Palaszczuk said at a later press conference. “I’m respectful to people and I would hope that people could show the same respect back. That’s all I’m asking.

“I think people have a right to have their say and I will listen to their views, but I did think that a couple of them did get a little bit out of hand.”

GetUp!’s spokeswoman said the group “is considering what its members want to do in the Queensland election and where the parties will stack up on our ­issues”.

Earlier this year, it had ­targeted voters in marginal seats with 50,000 scripted phone calls in a bid to undermine the Palaszczuk government’s support for the Adani project.

A donation of $100,000 made to GetUp! was at the centre of ­Australian Federal Police raids on the offices of the Australian Workers Union last week.

Labor leader Bill Shorten — one of GetUp!’s original board members — has come under fire since The Australian revealed he was the chief instigator of the ­donation, made in 2006 while he was the head of the union.

Yesterday Dr Williams declined to comment on what contact she has with GetUp!’s Queensland organiser since they both left the Mackay Conservation Group last year, and said she no longer worked for 350.org. She said she had no formal affiliation with any of those groups.

“I did it as a member of Stop Adani Brisbane, and we’re a local community group,” she said of Sunday’s protest. “We’re all volunteers; we’re an independent group, and we took action yesterday as a group outside and inside the press conference.”

She said such groups planned to be increasingly vocal about their opposition to any government support for Adani during the campaign. “We are planning during the Queensland elections to raise the issue in the media and that means getting the Stop Adani message out there in a peaceful fashion,” she said.