On Monday, Extinction Rebellion WA spokesman Fraser Maywood said the protest would be "non-violent civil disobedience" to highlight and stop the damage WA's biggest polluters were doing to the planet. Earlier this month, protesters taunted mining delegates entering the International Mining and Resources Conference in Melbourne, which resulted in ugly clashes between protesters and police. WA Police Metropolitan Region Commander Tony Flack told 6PR's Gareth Parker he was concerned about Wednesday's planned protests because organisers had stopped communicating with police. He said the police presence at the event would be at the same level as CHOGM in 2011, when Queen Elizabeth II visited the city. "I don't think in terms of what we've done in terms of around the convention centre we've put an operation like this in since CHOGM. It's as secure as CHOGM," he said.

Mr Flack warned if protesters interfered in the free passage of visitors, including the thousands of school children expected to visit the showcase, there would be arrests. "I think it's really important to stress to these people, this is going to be attended not just by delegates of the resource and mining industry but we're going to have thousands of school kids and members of the public attempting to see what is a fantastic technology showcase," he said. Loading "They want to go about it freely and exercise their own civil rights to do so. We won't put up with people interfering with the passage of people. "Any attempt to do that will receive a police response, generally what happens is you're ordered to leave the premises if you fail to leave you're locked up for trespassing."

Mr Flack said arrangements had been made to take children safely into the conference without coming into contact with protesters. He said organisers had permitted protesters to use the centre forecourt for protesting activity and they were better prepared than Victorian police were for the IMARC protests. Extinction Rebellion WA spokesman Jesse Noakes refuted Mr Flack's claim that they had not spoken to police and reiterated that the movement was 'explicitly non-violent'. "We can confirm that discussion has been had between protest organisers and Police in order to safely facilitate our rights to protest without police violence and with the safety of the general public in mind," he said. "Any risk to safety or physical or verbal assaults of people are simply not in our DNA."