The employer of a journalist whose home was raided in Western Australia after photographing the relocation of sacred rock art from a gas-fed fertiliser plant in the Pilbara is “concerned” about the distress caused by a police search on her home, conducted hours later.
Ngaarda Media journalist Eliza Kloser was reportedly stopped by two police patrols as she was leaving the site last Friday morning, before she was met by WA police, who arrived at her home with a search warrant later that afternoon.
“Her home was searched extensively by police and an SD card was removed from a camera,” Ngaarda Media CEO Tangiora Hinaki told Crikey in a statement. “This card contained material obtained during the course of her journalistic work for Ngaarda Media and we ask that this be returned immediately.”
Kloser was at the site to photograph the relocation of ancient rock art from a $6 billion urea plant built by Perdaman to process gas from Woodside’s Scarborough project. In October the Perdaman plant was reported to have secured funding from the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility, to which the Albanese government has committed $7 billion in investment.
Kloser’s housemate and Ngaarda colleague Gerard Mazza was reportedly arrested earlier that Friday for his alleged involvement in a planned disruption expected to take place at Woodside’s annual general meeting on charges of “aggravated burglary with intent on a place”.
“I understand that the search was related to my housemate, but it was interesting to say the least that I interacted with police three times that day and the only thing they took was the SD card of my work,” Kloser told WAToday.
Hinaki said Mazza attended the AGM in a personal capacity, and that the media company “had no prior knowledge” of his alleged involvement. Mazza’s employment at the company will be safe pending charges, she said.
WA police have been contacted for comment.
The Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) later aired concerns over the reports, which the union said if accurate should prompt “urgent answers” over how police conducted themselves during “the raids”.
MEAA media director Cassie Derrick said journalists and their sources should be protected from “disturbing raids and harassment” by police.
“Police have seized and retained property on what appear to be questionable grounds,” she said. “The equipment seized contains confidential information that could jeopardise sources and prevents these journalists from being able to do their job of informing the public.
“We are calling for the WA police minister to investigate the behaviour of the police in these cases and to publicly report the outcome of these investigations.”
It’s time police stopped acting as the enforcement arms of fossil-fuel companies.
And journalists need to load their photographs to the cloud as soon as they snap them!
As a survivor of the media wars in a state far far away and at a different time (Bjelke Petersen Qld), swapping out cards is far faster than swapping rolls of film in cameras, and, sending dummy film rolls to be seized and triumphantly destroyed by the police, whilst a TAA pilot smuggled the real deal to Sydney the Nation Review and SMH.
This was your learning curve.
Which country did this occur?
Australia, North Queensland, 1978/79.
Queensland at the time was being run by the Country, then National Party with a massive majority.
The premier was a peanut farmer from Kingaroy, Joh Bejelke Petersen.
The police were corrupt (Not all of them), as evidenced by the Fitzgerald Inquiry.
They knew they could do whatever they wanted, mostly with impunity.
The photos that were smuggled out, were of the police behaving badly, after they had burned the houses of the alternates in Cedar Bay.
As I say again, “Absolute power corrupts absolutely”.
The Labor Party should clean house in WA and Victoria, as the smell of corruption is evident.
Yes, it was a long time ago and most under 40’s would know nothing about Joh, Russ Hienze and the Qld Country Party of the 70’s & 80’s. Queensland was known as ‘the Deep North”! Probably time for a retrospective on the era. Always possible that a new Joh could emerge somewhere.
They really should be made aware of Joh Bjelke-Petersen aka The Hillbilly Dictator,* as Premier of Queensland from 1968-1987 there was some of the worst gerrymandering ever seen in any political jurisdiction in the world.
1985 Bjelke-Petersen unveiled plans for another electoral redistribution to create seven new seats in four zones: four in the state’s populous south-east (with an average enrolment of 19,357 electors per seat) and three in country areas (with enrolments as low as 9386). The boundaries were to be drawn by electoral commissioners specially appointed by the government; one of them a lawyer. Sir Thomas Covacevich, was also a fundraiser for the National Party.
The malapportionment meant that a vote in the state’s west was worth two in Brisbane and the provincial cities. A University of Queensland associate professor of government described the redistribution as “the most criminal act ever perpetrated in politics … the worst zonal gerrymander in the history of the world” and the most serious action of Bjelke-Petersen’s political career.
*The Hillbilly Dictator : Australia’s police state/Evan Whitten
ABC Enterprises, Sydney NSW 1993. 2nd ed.
ISBN: 0733302882 9944826690001731
LC:JQ 4729 .C6 W48 1993
Queensland!
The sole function of police is to protect property and stop the poor eating the rich.
Governments do not ‘give’ rights – if people do not have them they will take them – later rather than sooner unfortunately.
When legitimate dissent (pick a topic) is impermissible it eventually becomes revolution but, alas, ars longa, vita brevis,
People forget that Victory choc substitute was once 10gms and they are, or become, grateful when the allowance is increased to 5gms.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
If the LNP could tear themselves away from their Right” movements, it maybe time to move before we have another WA Inc??
Someone, anyone with a Teal Tshirt??
The distress was deliberate, and in fact was the whole purpose of the police visit.
Australia is becoming more and more like Russia.
Don’t ask the police or political class to fix it – remember these are Labor governments!
Whats with this police fetish for raiding female reporters houses?
As WH Auden wrote “There’s always another story. There’s more than meets the eye.”
Important that reporter John Buckley sees the search warrant and details the permitted scope of the search : this is usually fairly tightly worded and any actions by police beyond those authorised (i.e. authorised by a magistrate normally) by the warrant could lead to disciplinary action or civil damages.
Over to you, John.