For the last five days Blockade Australia has been taking coordinated disruptive action across three major ports, to protest Australia’s lack of climate action. Kerry Smith reports.
Port of Newcastle
Rising Tide stopped a coal train for 5 hours on April 16 at the Port of Newcastle, after a successful camp for climate action. Coral Wynter, Rachel Evans and Richard Boult report.
Two women peacefully occupied a fully-laden coal train in Werris Creek on February 21 and a man occupied the line on February 27 to call for a moratorium on coal and gas production in Australia. They said they wanted to send a message to coal companies and the government.
More than 400 workers from several unions, notably the CFMEU, took their fight straight to billion dollar miner Rio Tinto for its complicity in sacking Australian seafarers and replacing them with foreign workers, who are paid as little as $2 an hour.
On February 5 in the Port of Newcastle, five crew members were marched down the gangway of the CSL Melbourne by more than 30 police. Those same police escorted the foreign replacement crew onto the ship to sail it away.