Opinion: Selfish activists couldn’t care less about the rest of us

Originally published in The Daily Telegraph, 5 July 2024

It takes a special kind of protest campaign to claim success while achieving the exact opposite. This is exactly what radical activist group ‘Blockade Australia’ has achieved over the last few weeks.

Blockade Australia is a bunch of radicals opposed to the entire system in which we all operate. According to their website, “To protect life on earth, the whole system must be brought down!”

This is the same activist group that disrupted traffic in the Sydney CBD on several consecutive days in 2022, including blocking the Harbour Bridge and Tunnel, causing traffic chaos for hundreds of thousands of people. They’ve previously targeted Port Botany for its role in global trade, as well as Ports in Melbourne and Brisbane for the same reason.

Over the past week, Blockade Australia has been at it again, this time targeting the Hunter rail line. A series of actions over consecutive days have involved the usual line-up of angry protesters illegally entering rail facilities and erecting makeshift barricades to try to stop coal trains getting to the Port of Newcastle.

These activists have been engaged in what they call ‘direct action’- code for breaking the law – in the misguided belief that their protests will somehow convince the rest of us to agree with their beliefs and dismantle the society we all live in, but they oppose.

One of the activists said online this week, ‘I’m disrupting corporate and institutional power, the foundation of Australia’s system.’

Well, actually you’re not. The short time spent chained to a pole will have little overall impact on NSW resource exports, which will quickly recover from any temporary disruptions.

Another of the activists said they were taking action to stand against ‘climate violence.’

Again, you are not. Last year NSW contributed less than two percent of total global coal production. The world’s two largest coal producers were China with just over half the world’s coal, and India with around 15 percent. If you really want to take radical action against ‘climate violence’, have the courage of your so-called convictions. Book yourself a plane ticket and try erecting your barricade in Tiananmen Square or outside the Taj Mahal.

According to another Blockade Australia activist, ‘this isn’t just about coal, it’s so much more, it’s the system in general’ This is at least partly true. The ongoing interruptions caused by these activists have impacted the Hunter rail system in general.

Most of these activists don’t live in the Hunter, or even NSW. If they did, they would know that coal trains are not the only users of the Hunter rail line. In the last week more than 100 passenger trains have also been cancelled due to the actions of Blockade Australia. Thousands of Hunter locals have been forced to use temporary bus services, facing longer travel times to get to work, and back home to their families.

The selfishness and stupidity of these wannabe revolutionaries is breathtaking.

First and foremost, they are putting themselves in danger by entering a working rail corridor with little to no understanding of how the Hunter rail network operates. They exacerbate this by erecting dodgy constructs of steel and wire in a transport thoroughfare not designed to accommodate such shoddy structures.

They put the safety of train drivers and rail workers at risk, faced with the daily stress of having to watch for foolish activists trespassing on the rail line in case someone is grievously hurt or even killed.

They impact the daily lives of people relying on passenger trains that are also disrupted.

Perhaps most importantly, these activists are impacting the lives of emergency service personnel, like the Police and others redirected from more important duties to risk their own safety to remove people from danger along the rail line.

It’s a typically selfish approach from a bunch of people who are clearly unable to engage in effective debate, or win an argument, so resort to their dangerous stunts instead.

The Police do the best they can to protect the community from these lawbreakers, but the courts seem to regularly impose no more than a token punishment, often with a word of sympathy and even encouragement. This is a real shame.

Sadly, it’s also likely to continue until someone actually gets seriously injured or killed, and the courts decide to get real. Let’s hope it doesn’t take such a tragedy.

Stephen Galilee
CEO NSW Minerals Council