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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.”

Blockade Australia media contact List: https://www.blockadeaustralia.com/subscribe-to-media-updates/

Vision: https://mega.nz/folder/QLcFxLob#bCduj1eCSs46qE5luiepRA 

Livestream: https://fb.watch/lkrrmOT66r/

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.

Blockade Australia media contact List: www.blockadeaustralia.com/subscribe-to-media-updates

Vision: https://mega.nz/folder/QLcFxLob#bCduj1eCSs46qE5luiepRA 

Livestream: https://fb.watch/ljea1W6yuf/

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.

Vision: https://mega.nz/folder/QLcFxLob#bCduj1eCSs46qE5luiepRA

Livestreams: https://fb.watch/lj56NzoroO

Socials links: https://linktr.ee/blockade.australia

Subscribe to media updates: www.blockadeaustralia.com/subscribe-to-media-updates

Interviews available.

Video: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=602761158639641

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. 

Contact us for interviews or exclusive access

Blockade Australia media contact list: https://www.blockadeaustralia.com/subscribe-to-media-updates/

Vision: https://mega.nz/folder/QLcFxLob#bCduj1eCSs46qE5luiepRA 

Social Media: https://linktr.ee/blockade.australia

Blockade Australia sustained disruption continues: climate activist stops Newcastle coal port.

HAPPENING NOW, 3:40am: Muloobinba local, Angus, is sitting atop a 9-metre pole on a rail bridge at Branxton (stolen Wonnarua land) on the Hunter region rail line leading into the Newcastle coal port, effectively obstructing the Hunter Valley supply line. This supply line carries coal to the port of Newcastle, most globally significant export hub of thermal coal.

Their banner says “EXPORT ECONOMY = CLIMATE FUCKERY”

Angus, 22 years of age, 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.”

“This is an organised resistance to the Australian system’s organised destruction.”

The resistance movement that disrupts Australia continues for the third consecutive day today, as staunch activists take direct actions to challenge the current economic and political structures across the continent. Newcastle coal port, Brisbane port and Melbourne port have been forced to halt operations each day as a result of these actions. The organising network of Blockade Australia has deployed periods of sustained disruption in the Newcastle Coal Port in 2021, the Port of Botany in 2022, and the Sydney CBD in 2022.

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.

Vision: https://mega.nz/folder/QLcFxLob#bCduj1eCSs46qE5luiepRA 

Livestream: https://fb.watch/lhHaT4htKu/

Socials links: https://linktr.ee/blockade.australia

Subscribe to media updates: www.blockadeaustralia.com/subscribe-to-media-updates

Interviews available

This morning, Niamh O’Connor (20) has abseiled off the Footscray Rd Bridge, blocking six lanes of traffic and the operations of the Port of Melbourne.

This is the third consecutive day that activists from Blockade Australia have organised simultaneous disruptions of major ports in Melbourne, Newcastle, and Brisbane.

Their banner reads “You can’t demand anything from the system.”

Niamh said:

“Blockade Australia has no demands because you cannot demand anything from a system that is designed to extract and exploit. The system that will always put profit above acting on the climate crisis. This system is the problem and the only way to create change is to stop it. By abseiling off the Footscray Rd Bridge and blocking the operations of the Port of Melbourne I am disrupting the system that must be stopped.”

“Stopping the extrativist machine that is Australia, by putting myself in front of an economic bottleneck that the system relies on, is a powerful tool of protest that effectively creates change.”

“I organised with School Strike 4 Climate. I stood with 150,000 other people and asked for change from the government, a tool of the system, to have no response. Asking the system that benefits from not acting doesn’t work. Acting to stop destructive industry is effective.”

A member of the Blockade Australia network said: 

“The ecosystems that support human and nonhuman life are under attack. Systems designed to extract and exploit are at fault.”

“Australia’s response to climate change is a death sentence disguised as action.”

“The climate crisis is a by-product of our current political and economic system.”

“Australia’s economic and political interests are incompatible with life.” 

The Blockade Australia network has organised periods of sustained disruption in the Newcastle Coal Port in 2021, the Port of Botany in 2022, and the Sydney CBD in 2022. This move is the latest in a long campaign to disrupt economic bottlenecks in the Australian system in order to stop Australia’s climate destruction.

Blockade Australia media contact list: https://www.blockadeaustralia.com/subscribe-to-media-updates/

Vision: https://mega.nz/folder/QLcFxLob#bCduj1eCSs46qE5luiepRA 

Livestream: https://fb.watch/lhTPZoJQIv/

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

Subscribe to media updates: www.blockadeaustralia.com/subscribe-to-media-updates

Interviews available.