Editorial: Weaponising kids really is just another dirty tactic

When you’re the boss of an energy giant, you’re going to cop some flak.

Meg O’Neill knows this well. She understands that some in the community believe her role as chief executive of Woodside Energy makes her an eco-villain.

It’s not something that bothers her enormously and nor does she take it personally.

She understands it comes with the territory, and it says a lot about her that she is happy to engage respectfully with protestors who want to do so.

When Woodside’s annual general meeting was picketed by environmentalists and protest votes lodged by shareholders last year, Ms O’Neill extended to some of those critics, including Greenpeace boss David Ritter, an invitation to talk, saying she wanted Woodside to “be informed by parties that are thinking deeply in this space”.

But there’s a yawning divide between respectful protest and the sort of witless and obnoxious behaviour that is becoming the preferred mode of action of Disrupt Burrup Hub supporters.

On Wednesday, the latest stunt pulled from their bag of dirty tricks was to invoke the names of the children of Ms O’Neill and her colleague, Woodside chair Richard Goyder.

Tom Power and Emma Heyink, both 17, entered Woodside’s annual general meeting at Crown Towers as proxy shareholders.

Before being escorted out of the meeting by security personnel, Tom yelled out the names of Mr Goyder’s four children, while Emma yelled out the name of Ms O’Neill’s eldest child and accused the company boss of “killing kids”.

It was an unnecessary, unscrupulous and dishonest attack.

And it will win these protesters no fans among the rest of the community.

“I think there were some very disrespectful behaviours exhibited by some of the people who attended our meeting today,” Ms O’Neill said after their display.

“I’m fair game, (and) Richard, I think, would accept that he’s fair game, but our families have the right to go about their business.”

West Australians would agree with her.

Families are off-limits.

That was made clear by the fury with which most West Australians reacted when Disrupt Burrup Hub protesters last year went to Ms O’Neill’s home before dawn with the plan to chain-shut the front gate to the home she shares with her partner and daughter.

Both just 17, Tom and Emma are children themselves. And just like the children of Ms O’Neill and Mr Goyder, they have also been weaponised by these environmental extremists who care for little else besides pushing their ill-advised agenda by whatever means necessary.

Tom and Emma are clearly passionate young people who care about their world. We should congratulate and encourage them. We need engaged young people like them to help solve our climate crisis.

But as they will hopefully soon learn, stunts such as these do nothing to help us move towards that goal.