Climate activist arrested after fake gas leak stunt in Perth

• By Avi Yemini

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A climate activist who staged a fake gas leak at Woodside Energy headquarters Thursday afternoon has been arrested.

Hundreds of staff had to be evacuated from the companies offices in the Perth CBD after reports of a noxious smell sparked fears of a gas leak.

Police and firefighters raced to the scene but quickly released they were dealing with a hoax.

It was later found that a woman outside the building had released plumes of “stench gas”.

Activist and musician Kristen Morrissey framed the evacuation while staff exited the building, using legal yellow smoke flares to represent the toxic emissions streaming out in ever-expanding quantities of Woodside’s Burrup Hub... pic.twitter.com/1TVyf93ztk

— DISRUPT BURRUP HUB (@BURRUPHUB) June 1, 2023

She had lit gas flares that were harmless in nature but that replicated the smell of a gas used on mine sites to sound the alarm about an emergency.

The woman was identified as a climate change protester from Disrupt Burrup Hub, an activist group fighting Woodside Energy’s industrial expansion plans along Western Australia’s Burrup Peninsula.

The group explained their motive for the hoax on social media.

“Today Disrupt Burrup Hub has deployed non-toxic, non-flammable 'stench gas' to shut down business-as-usual at Woodside Energy HQ, in an effort to alert the company to the climate and cultural emergency unfolding at their Burrup Hub operations,” the group wrote on Twitter.