Dozens of arrests have been made after some of the busiest roads in Perth’s CBD were thrown into chaos on Friday morning by climate activists as part of a nationwide Extinction Rebellion demonstration. A group of about 400 men, women and children from Extinction Rebellion marched along William Street through the heart of the city during the morning peak hour. The protesters gathered near Elizabeth Quay about 8:30am and made their way up to St Georges Terrace, stopping traffic on the Esplanade as they went. In anticipation police closed St Georges Terrace from Howard Street to King Street,
with three lanes of traffic redirected onto the narrow one-way shopping street. The group staged a yoga session in the middle of St Georges Terrace before continuing to Hay Street. A sit-in protest was then staged, with some protesters linking their arms with plastic pipes and chains. One man dressed as a pirate glued his feet to a wooden pedestal. The large police presence which had been lining the route and following the march all morning then began to close in. There was about one police officer for every four protestors. The intersection was taped off and the group warned if they did not leave the road they were breaking the law and may be arrested. Police announced those instructions over a loudspeaker and began informing protesters one by one, including the elderly and wheelchair bound. While the crowd then thinned about 60 remained in the intersection as an “act of civil disobedience”. Police used power tools to cut the protesters’ plastic pipe arm locks, and a solvent was needed to unglue the pirate’s feet. The activists were then marched or carried to police vans and taken away from the area, with about 65 arrests made in total. Some members of the public voiced frustrations at the disruption, others said they sympathised with the cause, while many were simply bemused by the spectacle.