A young activist with Blockade Australia has climbed on top of a mountain of coal and pulled the breaks of a loader stopping the world’s largest coal port. This is the sixth action taken as part of a coordinated mobilisation against the global climate crisis that Australia is facilitating.
Location: on top of stockpiles of coal, inside the Newcastle coal port. Kooragang Island, Newcastle, NSW – on stolen, unceded Awabakal and Worimi Country.
For the second consecutive day ports around the continent have been shut down by activists. These ports are Newcastle coal port, Brisbane port and Melbourne port.
Australia is set up as a colonial extraction project for the Commonwealth, by shutting down the critical infrastructure of ‘Australia’ we resist this project leading us to climate collapse.
Their banner says “Ecological collapse demands organised resistance. Take Action. Blockade Australia.”
Grace, 18, a conservation graduate from Ngunnawal & Ngambri country says why they are taking direct action:
“Politicians aren’t going to suddenly wake up; there is no magic formula of words that will make them want to change things.”
“Studying conservation challenges the idea of what this system thinks considers beautiful. The more I understand about conservation the less exciting learning about ecosystem becomes – it is totally heartbreaking knowing how quickly everything is dying. Once you know how quickly everything is dying it makes no sense not to act with urgency like I am right now.”
“Sometimes being part of a small group of people doing this feels unfair. A lot of people are ignoring the reality of the crisis because it’s too uncomfortable. Not acknowledging the situation we are in is cowardly. We can all take responsibility in these desperate times to do something about it, together.”
“Engaging in direct action like this makes a clear statement that we won’t be messed around. We are doing this because it’s necessary for survival and necessary to avert mass extinction. Actions like this are for our collective survival I act out of love for our haters, for the people rooting for us, for literally all human and nonhuman life.”
This is part of a coordinated mobilisation in response to Australia’s facilitation of the climate and ecological crisis, and its active blocking of impactful action towards a safe climate.
UPDATE: After being refused police bail and held in a cell over night Grace was released on bail the following afternoon by a magistrate in the Newcastle local court. She will appear in court to face charges on the 15th of July.
Vision: https://mega.nz/folder/QLcFxLob#bCduj1eCSs46qE5luiepRA
Livestream: https://fb.watch/lhdVL9MInt/
Socials links: linktr.ee/blockade.australia
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Interviews available.
