Mr Iain Murray, who works with a small organisation called Pt'chang Nonviolent Community Safety Group, met with Mr Parkin the week prior to his detainment in order to plan a workshop entitled "Bringing Down the Pillars: People Power and Direct Action".

“Our teaching agenda is open for public scrutiny – Scott and I have nothing to hide.”

"Scott and I spent several hours planning the agenda for this workshop together. I still have the notes from our discussion. The workshop had absolutely nothing to do with horses or police. The most frightening thing we planned to do was screw up pieces of paper and throw them at each other, and that was my idea, not Scott's."

"I know that this particular workshop was the only one that Scott planned to participate in before leaving for New Zealand to continue his holiday. Anyone claiming to know what we planned to teach in the workshop would have had to have been following us around the café's of Smith Street in Collingwood and hiding behind newspapers, but I don't recall seeing any evidence of that."

Mr Murray challenged the anonymous source behind the reports in The Australian to identify themselves.

"This would have to be one of the clumsiest attempts to smear an individual's name that we've ever seen in this country. There is absolutely no evidence to back these claims, and whoever has made them has done so from behind the firewall of secrecy that surrounds this whole affair.

"Let's hear them repeat the claims openly. As an individual who is deeply and publicly committed to nonviolence, I would welcome the opportunity to test the accusations in court, as I'm sure would Scott."