Hundreds of climate protestors disrupted the last sitting week of the Federal Parliament on Wednesday, with 24 of them arrested, two spent the night in custody, the rest released on condition they stay away for two years. Wendy Bacon reports.
Rising Tide travelled from Newcastle to Canberra on Monday and set up camp at the invitation of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy, which is supporting the climate activists. Their forty-eight-hour vigil ends today. Protesters are demanding an end to new or expanded fossil fuel projects and a 78% tax on fossil fuel profits to support communities that are currently dependent on fossil fuel jobs.
Protesters are already bitterly disappointed with what they see as a Labor betrayal of a promise to improve climate policy. Instead of decreasing, coal exports will rise back over 200 million tonnes per annum in the next two years, while gas exports have settled at levels 60% higher than in 2016.
The Australian taxpayer also continues to subsidise the fossil fuel industry while the Labor government actively entertains the illusion of carbon capture and storage.
On Wednesday, Rising Tide protesters occupied the foyer and also the road in front of Parliament House, chanting: “Flood, fires famine, we are terrified. But we will overcome, like the Rising Tide.” They held up a large banner that said, “Albo: Stop new coal and gas, or we will.” Police ejected protesters who were handed orders signed by the Usher of the Black Rod not to return to the parliamentary precinct for three months or face prosecution.
One protester, Sally Novak, a primary school teacher from Newcastle, said:
I’m here to take action because our government haven’t done what they promised they would when they were elected.
Twenty-four people were arrested, and two spent the night in custody; others were released on the condition that they do not go near the Australian parliamentary precinct for two years, is bound to be challenged in court as anti-democratic and amounting to extra-judicial punishment.
The Canberra protest followed Australia’s largest climate civil disobedience protest in which the Port of Newcastle was disrupted for several days, and 173 people were arrested.
Climate protests to continue despite 170 charged in Newcastle ‘protestival’
Many of them have been charged under the draconian anti-protest section of the NSW Crimes Act. A large alliance of civil and human rights groups are campaigning to have the section repealed.
The anti-protest laws have already been found to be partly unconstitutional by the NSW Supreme Court, so some of these cases are likely to be strongly fought by a team of pro bono lawyers who support civil liberties.
A protest for the age and for all ages
Two of the under-18-year-olds arrested in Newcastle marched defiantly back into the Rising Tide camp after their arrests, and 16-year-old student Niamh Cush told the rally in Canberra that before the Rising Tide event, she wrote to Prime Minister Albanese asking him to meet her on the lawns. “I asked him to explain why he has approved 28 new coal and gas projects on stolen land since coming into power. I’ve heard nothing. His silence says it all.”
Young people demand to know when Albanese is going to stop jeopardising the future of our generation by approving new coal and gas projects.
“Governments have been warned about the danger of the climate crisis for long before I was born. It’s unforgivable that those who swore to protect are choosing to betray the youth of Australia by continuing to prioritise the profits of coal and gas billionaires. The Government is burning my future by allowing new fossil fuels – when is it going to stop?”
Thirteen-year-old Han, also arrested on Sunday, told other protesters, “I was one of 31,000 people who lost their homes in the 2022 Northern Rivers flooding. I’m here today because I’m really, really angry that our government is sitting in their air-conditioned board rooms watching our future burn and doing nothing about it.”
Rising Tide has a grassroots model for growth that involves local groups conducting many meetings in community centres and churches to build support and momentum. This enabled them to escalate and grow between 2023 and 2024: protest numbers in Newcastle almost tripled, and arrests increased by 60%.
As Rising Tide volunteer teams wrap up their Canberra camp, they are warning that they plan to further escalate civil disobedience actions on climate, coal and gas in the lead-up to the Federal Election and beyond.
Older people who feel they have failed younger generations are also joining the movement in significant numbers. After several failed attempts in Newcastle, June Norman, 84-year-old great-grandmother from the Noosa Hinterlands, QLD, was also arrested on Wednesday,
I fear so much for the future of my 8 grandchildren and 5 great grandchildren and their generation who are facing great hardships as we grapple with sea level rise, floods, fires and droughts.
“I have a duty to protect the environment so that my grandchildren and great-grandchildren can live in peace with a healthy environment. I became an activist at 65. I want my grandchildren to know that I did everything that I could so that they could live in peace with a healthy environment.”
Labor looks the other way
Labor is not visible at the climate protests. But the Greens have seized this opportunity.
“We are with the Rising Tide,” Deputy Leader Mehreen Faruqi declared in the Senate yesterday. “And the greens are with the rising tide. It was a real privilege to join the rising tide with 1000s of courageous climate warriors in Newcastle on the weekend. Right there, we saw the best example of people power.”
No amount of over-policing or cracking down on our right to dissent will stop these climate defenders from showing up to protect our planet and our future.
Greens politicians, from leader Adam Bandt to Greens Councillors from around Australia, were out on Newcastle Harbour at the weekend. As it heads for the end of this term of parliament, Labor is completely absent from the Rising Tide movement. It offered promise on climate but has bitterly disappointed many as it continues to new and expanded coal mines and gas fields.
If all that was not enough, the WA Premier boasted yesterday that he had personally lobbied Prime Minister Albanese not to pass the Nature Postive bills in this term of parliament. As this news broke, protesters were occupying parliament.
However politicians – Labor, LNP, Green or Independent – fare in the coming Federal election, the protest movements will continue while governments continue to add to the crisis by approving more massive coal and gas projects.
The problem for politicians who declare that they are in favour of the right to protest so long as it doesn’t disrupt anyone going about their business is that their words sound hollow to many ordinary citizens. People are witnessing massive climate change disruption that fills them with dread for what lies ahead. In these circumstances, more and more are deciding that the alternative to despair is collective action that brings hope.
Wendy Bacon is an investigative journalist who was the Professor of Journalism at UTS. She worked for Fairfax, Channel Nine and SBS and has published in The Guardian, New Matilda, City Hub and Overland. She has a long history in promoting independent and alternative journalism.
She is a long-term supporter of a peaceful BDS and the Greens.