Greenpeace activists oil ship protest was just 'low level disobedience'
Friday, 20 July 2018
Convicting Greenpeace activists who disrupted an oil exploration vessel would deter others from undertaking important protests that would benefit society, their lawyer has told a court.
Greenpeace executive director Russel Norman and fellow activist Sara Howell appeared in Napier District Court on Friday to apply for a discharge without conviction after admitting a charge of interfering with an oil exploration vessel.
Crown prosecutor Cameron Stuart said the pair caused significant disruption and danger and there was a high level of perseverance and premeditation by the defendants, as evidenced by the fact they acknowledged they rehearsed their moves in advance.
Their actions posed huge risk to them and to the ship's crew and sensationalised what would have been a peaceful and legal activity'.
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Norman and Howell intercepted oil industry survey ship Amazon Warrior as it carried out work off the Wairarapa coast in April 2017 and swam in an exclusion zone near the ship.
Stuart said the pair caused significant disruption and danger and there was a high level of perseverance and premeditation by the defendants, as evidenced by the fact the pair now acknowledged they rehearsed their moves in advance.
Their actions posed a huge risk to them and to the ship's crew and sensationalised what would have been a peaceful and legal activity'.
'This hearing is not about the morality of the law. It's not about oil. It's not about climate change,' Stuart said.
He said the consequences of a conviction would not be out of all proportion to the gravity of the offending. He said the pair had leveraged what they called an 'unjust prosecution' as a means of publicising their views.
This raised questions as to how their reputation could be damaged if they were convicted, he said.
'A conviction would add nothing,' Stuart said
Judge Arthur Tompkins said that argument 'cut both ways' and there may be an argument as to why a conviction was necessary.
Norman and Howell were represented by Ron Mansfield, said the pair were devoted to fighting climate change and the burning of fossil fuels.
Their views were genuine, well-held, and designed to care for generations to come, Mansfield said.
He said the pair had entered the water at a distance from the vessel that permitted it to avoid them without too much disruption.
He said the danger had been 'completely overstated' and the pair could have been removed from the water at any time.
Mansfield said the offending was 'low level civil disobedience' and it would be concerning if others undertaking such protests were prevented from doing so because they feared being convicted.
Judge Tompkins said other protesters had been convicted in the past and this had not had the 'chilling effect' Mansfield suggested.
The pair faced a maximum penalty of 12 months' imprisonment, or a fine of up to $50,000 for the offence of interfering with or coming within 500m of an offshore ship involved in oil exploration.
While reparation was no longer sought by the Crown, Mansfield said his clients were happy to donate $3000 each to Coastguard NZ.
Judge Tompkins reserved his decision. The pair were remanded until September 24.
A third man involved in the protest, Gavin Mulvay, had accepted the offer of diversion. He was not employed by Greenpeace.
Norman and Howell did not accept the offer of diversion. They pleaded not guilty to the charges and Norman said he would be using a greater good defence to fight the charges, bringing in climate change experts, and would argue it was critical people stand up to prevent climate change.
They later changed their minds and pleaded guilty in April.
The Amazon Warrior is a 21,000 tonne vessel and is 126 metres long. It is operated by a subsidiary of Schlumberger Ltd and from November 2016 until mid-2017 had surveyed an area between 20 and 250 kilometres off the east coast, between Napier and Cape Palliser.
Norman and the others left Napier harbour in four vessels and made their way towards the survey area on April 8. The vessels included the Greenpeace vessel Taitu, the privately owned Koputai and two inflatable vessels.
Just before midday on April 10 the trio donned wetsuits and boarded the inflatable vessels and put themselves in the water in front of the Amazon Warrior.
According to a summary of facts, the crew on the Amazon Warrior asked the protesters to move, citing safety concerns. The request was refused by those on board the Taitu.
Then the Amazon Warrior took evasive action by turning to port side Norman and the others were rotated in and out of the water in order to stay in the path of the ship.
The ship was eventually forced to make a complete 360-degree turn.
The summary stated that it costs about $400,000 a day to conduct the survey and the evasive action took 8 hours at a cost to Schlumberger of about $150,000.
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