by martin zygote

There was outrage last night after the Prime Minister, John Howard, was placed in a jar by student protestors as he left a Perth liberal party conference. Howard was leaving the conference where he had delivered a speech to Perth ALP members, and was on his way to his car when he was intercepted by a group of student protestors, who started taunting him loudly.

He was making his way through them when one of the students picked him up and put him in an empty jar, before replacing the lid. Security intervened immediately, grabbing the jar and releasing Mr. Howard, who was then pushed into his car and driven away.

Mr. Howard was said to be unhurt, although shaken by the incident. "Fortunately he was only in the jar for about thirty seconds before security saved him," a witness said, "but he seemed very shaken up, and embarrassed by the whole thing. Obviously he's a very little guy, and he seemed completely unable to defend himself when this student just picked him up with one hand and chucked him in this jar.

"He was walking through these protestors who basically ambushed him, and security was lagging behind, and this guy just put him in a jar. He had it uncapped and ready, he must have planned the whole thing. But once Mr. Howard was in the jar, he started banging against the glass and yelling, and the bodyguards came running straight away and freed him. "

State Liberal leader Colin Barnett said the incident was disgusting. "These students are basically terrorists. When people go about putting the prime minister in a jar, I call that an agressive, terrorist act. These people obviously have nothing better to do.

"Staging a legitimate protest is one thing, but trapping the Prime Minister in a jar...It's just not on."



The Prime Minister trapped in a jar yesterday

He added that he had felt deeply embarrassed about the incident and had apologised to Mr. Howard on behalf of all West Australians. He said it highlighted security concerns which the Liberal party have had for some time.

"We are going to have to review security, how we can improve it. It's great that security acted as fast as they did, but this should never have happened in the first place. As soon as they saw someone with an opened jar they should have acted immediately, they should have recognised the danger.

"Someone just has to grab the Prime Minister and put him a jar or a glass, or even a bottle, and then they can run off, and that's it, we've lost him. Obviously in this time of increased terrorist threat, and what with the Prime Minister being so small, we have to take all these things into consideration, and so security must be stepped up significantly. Obviously this is going to cost a lot of money, which I think is wonderful."

The student, Mitchel Rose, 19, was cautioned by police. He said today he didn't understand why people were so upset. "I was just fooling around. I never seriously intended to harm him in any way at all.

"I just wanted to stop him, so we could talk to him. He always runs away from protestors, so I got the idea of putting him in a jar to stop him from escaping." He said there was never any danger of the Prime Minister suffocating as he has made small holes in the jar lid.



Posted by Martin Zygote at September 15, 2003 02:21 PM