Jacinta jumped on top of a freight train at the Port of Melbourne today, halting its import/export operations.
The Port of Brisbane, Port of Newcastle and Port of Melbourne are three pieces of infrastructure that critical to Australia’s operations. Shutting them down halts global supply lines. These are growth-driven chains of destruction that are actively harming the climate and failing to provide the needs for any life to thrive.
This is what Jacinta had to say:
“Australia works within an extractive system that is literally killing our chances of survival. We need to reimagine a world we want to live in”.
“We do not have time to wait for the government and corporations. They are never going to do what we need to do to survive. The system is geared solely towards exponential economic growth and expansion. We can’t have exponential growth on a finite planet.”
WE STOPPED A COAL TRAIN. ONE BOTTLENECK AT A TIME.
For the fourth consecutive day, the operations of the world’s largest coal port at Newcastle was stopped by two activists who locked on, atop a loaded coal train at a Hunter River bridge crossing in Singleton (on stolen, unceded on Wonnarua Country). Ayla has just been released and is on their way home, and Kalpa is still in police custody awaiting court tomorrow.
Ayla (16) said: “I’m here because this system is hurling us towards total climate collapse, because I’m worried about my future, worried I’m not going to be able to have kids. I’m taking the power back for myself. I don’t believe anyone has a say in our current political system, especially not those whose future we’re trying to save. I’m here in solidarity with everyone else who’s fighting for our future, in solidarity with the land and the water and the trees. Because it’s something worth saving.”
Kalpa Goldflam (64) said: I take this action today on Wonnarua Country as an act of civil resistance. As I write this, our world as we know it is continuing to hurtle towards ecological and climate collapse.”
“The system that is called Australia – the industries, governments, and organisations are all complicit in maintaining economic growth, despite the certain increasing death of more and more people, animals and ecosystems this priority ensures.”
“So much climate disaster is already happening, and that’s one of the reasons I believe governments and corporations are engaging in gaslighting. It’s not like we’re going to be at some point in the future, we are in an emergency right now.”
“I have climbed onto the train that was heading towards Newcastle coal port, the biggest coal port of the world and a key economic world fossil fuel gateway, to protest this system’s inability to care about the survival of any form of life on the planet.”
“I have three beautiful grandchildren from 10 down to 3 months. I have a village of millions of children around the world, and as a village member I’m taking responsibility for making changes – not within the current system, but direct at the system itself. It’s the system that’s causing the harm they are saying they are managing to fix.”
BRISBANE / BLOCKADE AUSTRALIA / FRIDAY 23 JUNE 8:20PM
A Blockade Australia activist, Kitty (25) has stopped all trains from entering the Port of Brisbane this evening by climbing on top of a coal train. This is an act of defiance against a violent system that has never had the well-being of people and land as a priority.
Their banners read “Hope Lies in Resistence” and “This System is Killing Us”.
Tonight’s action completes a five-day run of disruptions which are intended to actually put a spanner in the workings of the business-as-usual systemic exploitation of land, resources, and people on this continent.
Disruption taken this evening at Queensland’s fastest growing port has been taken along side disruption at Newcastle Port, the world’s biggest coal port, and Melbourne Port, the biggest container port in Australia.
Kitty says
“Climate collapse is happening right now and it is the direct result of these systems, governments, industries that are deliberately creating this destruction.
“It’s really important that we remember we have the power to activate any change that we want to see in the world.
As a young person I feel uncomfortable in the reality that I’m living in because I’m inflicted by this system that doesn’t actually serve the people. I don’t want to look back on myself and say oh I just sat and watched the planet screaming and did nothing.”
BA refuses to specify demands of a system that was built to profit off exploitation, while aiming to provoke systemic change of institutional direction, especially away from endless extraction and consumption. The consensus of climate science is that the current trajectory is unsupportable and unethical and it is going to result in tragedies on an epic scale in the fairly near future. Unprecedented floods, fires, heatwaves and drought are already happening in multiple locations, across Australia and globally.
A Blockade Australia spokes person said “We are calling for fellow community members to get involved in the multiple roles that make such direct actions possible. Collective and organised disruptive activity at economic bottlenecks is a proven method to generate vital change.”
Supporters can find online information talks happening within the next week to learn more about how they can get involved.
WORLD’S LARGEST COAL PORT OPERATIONS HALTED ON FIFTH DAY OF SUSTAINED DISRUPTION
At 6am am, Vickers entered the Kooragang Island terminal of the Port of Newcastle with a bike scaling a stacker reclaimer with a lock on and stopped all operations.
Location: https://goo.gl/maps/ztr2wXSfg7PGgGBb7 Kooragang Island NSW
Time: HAPPENING NOW – 6am start
The solo activist explained: “This act of resistance is happening on stolen, unceded Awabakal and Worimi Country. I pay my respects to First Nations people across this continent and everywhere that are resisting organised destruction.”
“Unless you’ve recently swapped your head for a pumpkin, you’ll know that humanity and the ecosystems we live with are in deep shit.”
“Australia, which I see as the entirety of our intertwined economic and political system, is unwilling to control its addiction to extracting fossil fuels and flogging them to the rest of the world. Australia is massively driving the climate crisis that we’re all having to face right now and into the foreseeable future if we don’t act now.”
“In the absence of any braking system to this runaway train towards global destruction, I am taking matters into my own hands by stopping the world’s largest supply chain export of coal from operating. We need to disrupt Australia where it hurts most. Ports represent 98% of Australia’s trade – where most of its wealth and prestige lies with the rest of the world.”
“I am one person, I can do this, imagine what could we do if you join us.”
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.
This morning Blockade Australia launched a fifth day of economic disruption to major ports across the continent.
Blockade Australia activist Aiko (19) has ascended a 9 metre monopole device on the railway line servicing the Port of Melbourne, the ropes supporting their life stretched across five tracks. They are cutting all rail traffic in and out of the Swanson and Appleton Docks, the biggest rail bottleneck inside the largest container port on the continent.
Simultaneously, an activist has entered the Newcastle Coal Port and hit a big red STOP button, stopping all work and export onsite.
Aiko’s banner reads “Stop the system. Protect each other.”
They said:
“We need some radical change, we need some radical resistance against the exploitative system.”
“I’m here because I have seen that the state intentionally inflicts violence on the land and the people, and that those in power are profiting off this exploitation.
It’s important, as people, to take back that power, to resist something that is causing so much violence.”
A Blockade Australia spokesperson said “the machine we call Australia has been built to exploit the land and the people, and will stop at nothing to ensure it continues to grow and consume. This machine is entirely incompatible with the limits of or biosphere. Australia must be stopped, and we are taking disruptive direct action today to create small moments of stoppage. From these moments, we can begin to imagine ways of living that are liberatory and supporting of all life.”
“Our ability to take direct action is significant in stopping Australia’s operations. Political power is protected in institutionalised, authorised channels. Pinch points in supply lines like these three major ports are not.”
“Together we can act to stop this relentless destruction and create a system that supports and nurtures life. Getting there requires a determined and committed resistance movement that physically resists Australia at the most disruptive points in its operating systems.”
The main road leading into the Port of Brisbane has, for the third day in a row, been blocked by an activist bringing attention to the vital system change that we need to foster a healthy environment on this planet.
Naomi was locked onto the back of 2 vehicles for a couple of hours to stand in the way of the destruction of this continent. This disruption was taken collectively, on stolen land, with actions happening across so-called Newcastle and Melbourne ports.
In her livestream, Naomi said “I’m doing this because otherwise I’d be completely miserable watching the ecosystems around me be destroyed. Direct action is a method for creating change because it speaks truth to power and demonstrates the urgency of the situation. I really wish for humanity that we can find common goals and a sense of purpose, and more loving ways of existing with the earth.”
An organised resistance movement, made up of everyday people, is what is required to stop Australia’s destruction and protect the natural systems necessary for all life.
Update: 35 hours later (at publication time) and Naomi has still not been released or seen a magistrate and likely won’t until at least 2 days after this protest.
2 supporters of Blockade Australia have were arrested on site at this protest and have been in court and ordered to be held in prison at least until 17 June.
Stealthy Ninja Grace (18) and Angus (22) the impromptu comedian ground coal export to a standstill on Tuesday night. Separated by 50km and 5 hours they live streamed their legendary acts of courage on facebook. One cheeky and one hilarious they’re both great entertainment.
Grace jumped the barbed wire fence surrounding the mountains of coal at 9pm in the worlds largest coal port and ran in to pull the breaks an enormous machine that unloads trains and loads ships. She then scaled that machine and glued their hand to a maintenance railing 5 stories high.
Angus erected a 9m metal pole in the middle of the train tracks on a narrow rail bridge at 3:30am, the pole was tensioned across all the train tracks and Angus proceeded to safely climb up the pole and livestream for 6 hours.
Muloobinba local, Angus, stopped the Hunter Valley supply line leading into the Newcastle coal port, atop a 9-metre pole in early morning darkness into sunrise this morning on Wonnarua Country. The 22-year old said:
“The Australian system is killing us. We need to fight to continue living. The luxury of a handful of people is being prioritised over the lives of every other living thing on the planet. The best way we can fight the system is by directly confronting its operations with direct actions like this. Physical action that disrupts the destructive functioning of the colonial project known as Australia is real, political power.”
Glued on
Stealthy ninja, Grace (18) said:
“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.”
They are proud to have taken impactful action to disrupt the system that is killing us.
Jacinta Walsh (62) has stopped and jumped on top of a train at the rail line servicing the Port of Melbourne early this morning, halting the operations of the largest container port on the continent.
For the fourth day in a row, activists from Blockade Australia have successfully blockaded the Port of Melbourne. This has been part of a coordinated mobilisation across three major ports on the continent, aimed at disrupting the economic operations of Australia, to protest Australia’c continued blocking of climate action.
They are holding a banner which reads “We change everything, or we lose everything.”
Jacinta said: “Australia works within an extractive system that is literally killing our chances of survival. We need to reimagine a world we want to live in.”
“I fight for humanity, I fight for all species, I fight for the earth. We have one home, let’s keep it healthy. I fight for life.”
“We do not have time to wait for the government and corporations. They are never going to do what we need to do to survive. The system is geared solely towards exponential economic growth and expansion. We can’t have exponential growth on a finite planet.”
A spokesperson from Blockade Australia said:
“Without mass organised civil resistance, Australia and its allies will not stop organising the exploitation of this planet.”
“Sustained action that shuts down centres of political and economic power is the only effective means of forcing the political change required. It is time to Blockade Australia.”
Press conference in Melbourne with Niamh O Connor, who abseiled off the Footscray Rd Bridge on Wednesday, will be announced shortly.
Sustained disruption continues: Blockade Australia
LIVE NOW (5:50am): Two people have blockaded Newcastle coal port by shutting down the rail line after jumping on top of, and locking onto, a stopped train over a bridge crossing the Hunter River at Singleton. This is the fourth action to disrupt the functioning of the port this week.
For camera crew: be on location at Rose Point Park – https://goo.gl/maps/sUribhgpT8myVa3K9
Kalpa Goldflam, 64, and Ayla, 16, are stopping the functioning of the world’s largest coal port.
Their banner says: “AUSTRALIA: FUELLING THE CLIMATE CRISIS SINCE 1788.”
Kalpa says:
“I take this action today on Wonnarua Country as an act of civil resistance. As I write this, our world as we know it is continuing to hurtle towards ecological and climate collapse.”
“The system that is called Australia – the industries, governments, and organisations are all complicit in maintaining economic growth, despite the certain increasing death of more and more people, animals and ecosystems this priority ensures.”
“I have climbed onto the train that was heading towards Newcastle coal port, the biggest coal port of the world and a key economic world fossil fuel gateway, to protest this system’s inabilty to care about the survival of any form of life on the planet.”
“The growing network of Blockade Australia continues to hold the Australian system accountable for the current ecocide.”
Ayla says:
“I feel upset that I’m growing up in a time which species are going extinct daily. We need to empower communities to care for those in need and for the land they live on. We can’t do that under the current system.”
“The system keeps us silent enough to not blame it. Instead the blame is put on individuals, whilst those who profit are not held accountable. We are forced to live in a system that is causing social and ecological crises.
The system teaches us that we must sit by whilst injustice occurs. I am taking action today because we must resist that lie.”
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: Recent Newcastle arrestees, Grace and Angus, have both been released on bail. Ayla has been released on bail. Kalpa in custody will be in either Musselbrook or Newcastle local court tomorrow morning for a bail application.
HAPPENING NOW (15:28): For the third day in a row, the Port of Brisbane has been blocked by Blockade Australia as part of the activist network’s rolling actions occurring across the East Coast of the continent.
Activist Naomi Shine has shut down operations at the Port of Brisbane by locking on to two cars. The disruption demonstrates the power of community organising to push for change in the face of escalating climate destruction enacted by the political and economic systems of Australia. As Naomi explains:
“I’m taking this action because otherwise I’d be completely miserable watching the ecosystems around me be destroyed. Direct action is a method for creating change because it speaks truth to power and demonstrates the urgency of the situation.
I really wish for humanity that we can find common goals and a sense of purpose, and more loving ways of existing with the Earth.”
Australia’s toothless response to climate change is a death sentence disguised as action, already affecting the most vulnerable around the globe. If we don’t confront power where it operates on the ground, the political and economic systems will continue to churn through whatever life remains. Blockade Australia disrupts those systems, highlighting the power of everyday people to seek and create a future worth hoping for.
