Crowd stops work on new coal loader, Newcastle, Australia

April 19, 2008
A crowd of around 50 pro­tes­tors walked into the con­struc­tion site for the third coal ter­mi­nal on Koor­a­gang Island in New­caslte this morn­ing, stop­ping work at the site in protest against the expan­sion of the coal indus­try and its con­tri­bu­tion to cli­mate change.

April 19, 2008
A crowd of around 50 pro­tes­tors walked into the con­struc­tion site for the third coal ter­mi­nal on Koor­a­gang Island in New­caslte this morn­ing, stop­ping work at the site in protest against the expan­sion of the coal indus­try and its con­tri­bu­tion to cli­mate change.

The pro­tes­tors, includ­ing a num­ber of par­ents and grand­par­ents from the Hunter and oth­er regions in NSW say they have been forced to take dras­tic action because they fear that too lit­tle is being done to address our major con­tri­bu­tion to cli­mate change – our depen­dence on coal for pow­er and as an export com­mod­i­ty.

The pro­tes­tors walked onto the site this morn­ing and imme­di­ate­ly informed con­struc­tion crews that they were on site and that work must cease.

Georgina Woods, spokesper­son for Ris­ing Tide New­cas­tle, who is at he protest said, “His­tor­i­cal­ly, ordi­nary peo­ple have achieved extra­or­di­nary things by tak­ing direct action to pre­vent immoral or unsup­port­able actions. We are here today because we don’t want our chil­dren and grand­chil­dren to bear wit­ness to the ter­ri­ble hav­oc that cli­mate change has already begun to wreak on our world.

“We are will­ing to put our­selves at risk of arrest, if it will help con­vince the Gov­ern­ments of Aus­tralia that expand­ing the export coal indus­try is putting everyone’s future in jeop­ardy.

“We are stand­ing togeth­er today to call on the Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment in par­tic­u­lar to help this region move away from coal and stop this mad expan­sion that will come at such a ter­ri­ble cost.

“We call on the del­e­gates at today’s 2020 Ideas Sum­mit to remem­ber that coal exports is Aus­trali­a’s num­ber one con­tri­bu­tion to cli­mate change, as well as our fastest grow­ing. If Aus­trali­a’s response to cli­mate change fails to include a plan to phase out coal, it will be a fail­ure.

“Many of us here today have nev­er done any­thing like this before, but we are doing it now, because we may not get anoth­er chance.”

More com­mu­ni­ty direct action against coal exports will take place at the in July this year.

The protest last­ed for one and a quar­ter hours. 16 of the pro­test­ers were arrest­ed and charged with tres­pass.