Earth:Blockade Australia

Short description: Direct action group against the 'colonial exploitative project' of Australia.

Blockade Australia

Type	Advocacy group, Direct action
Purpose	Climate change mitigation Nature conservation Environmental protection Decolonization
Region	Australia
Fields	Conservation movement Environmental movement
Website	www.blockadeaustralia.com

Blockade Australia are a direct action group in Australia who blockade rail and roads in ports to 'force the urgent broad-scale change necessary for survival'. They describe themselves as “committed to taking the action necessary to disrupt economic bottlenecks of Australia and stop the exploitative colonial project”.

Organisation

Blockade Australia argues that the transport of goods and the maintaining of institutions by the state contributes to a system of oppression and violence by the state, while also contributing to ecological and climate destruction. To this end, actions are organised in a way to cause as much material disruption as possible with as few people as possible, while also minimising collateral such as arrests. This strategy contrasts with movements such as Extinction Rebellion which use arrests as a core tactic, while combining its ethos of mass participation and sustained action with the targeted tactics employed by anti fracking, anti forestry and anti coal groups.

Part of this disruption is through the element of surprise. To this end, the group maintains a very strict security culture that includes a ‘vouching’ system - whereby individuals are confirmed to be trustworthy. Information is passed from organisers to vouched individuals only through encrypted communications channels or via face to face meetings without technology such as phones in the vicinity; and vouched individuals are to discuss specific details of actions and mobilisations only with other vouched individuals and only through the methods as outlined above. Interested individuals not yet confirmed to be trustworthy are considered to be ‘unvouched’ - an individual becomes vouched by being confirmed as trustworthy by other vouched individuals and affirmed by organisers, or by attending a public information session and being inducted.

The organisation of Blockade Australia is largely decentralised and organised autonomously in accordance to anarchist principles through affinity groups, while organisers assist such groups by ensuring their actions adhere to Blockade Australia’s purpose statement and adhere to the purpose of the mobilisation. Generally, details of organising within affinity groups is contained within affinity groups with individuals knowing things on a strictly need to know basis - the idea being that if one group were to become compromised, the others would remain uncompromised.

Actions

Two individuals participating in Blockade Australia shut down world's largest coal port in Newcastle.

Port of Newcastle

In November 2021 Blockade Australia members carried out two weeks of nonviolent direct action using their bodies, rope and glue to shut down activity at Port of Newcastle, Hunter Region, the largest coal port in the world. As a result of the actions 27 were arrested, including new climate activists and some known from their participation in Front Line Action on Coal (FLAC) and Extinction Rebellion. Eric Sergeio Herbert was sentenced to 12 months in prison for climbing on top of a coal train. Under section 42C of the Confiscation of Proceeds of Crime Act 1989 (NSW), NSW police placed a freezing order upon 26-year-old Sasha's 2018 Hyundai Kona station wagon – which she'd been living in – for her suspected part in the actions. NSW police raided Newcastle's Hunter Community Environment Centre, despite the fact that it and its members had no connection to Blockade Australia and the shutting down of Newcastle Coal Port.

Port Botany

On 22 March 2022 a man was associated to Blockade Australia by Australian Broadcasting Corporation having alledgedly suspended himself from a pole in Port Botany. Later in the week two students of German nationality were announced to have visas revoked and to be deported for these actions Climate activist Maxim O'Donnell Curmi was jailed for four months for running into Port Botany and climbing on top of a crane.

Sydney

Blockade Australia noted planned blockades of Sydney on their website in June and July 2022. From the 28 July 2022 protest, 10 were arrested. The majority of those arrested were from other states.

Responses

Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce stated about the Port of Newcastle shutdown “If they’ve got other ways that this nation can earn money right now, then we’re all ears... but in the meantime, we’ve got to make a buck."

The New South Wales treasurer and energy minister Matt Kean has asked police to “throw the book” at Blockade Australia activists.

Parliamentary Secretary for the Hunter, Taylor Martin stated “I support the Police in seeking the maximum possible sentence for anybody involved in these idiotic acts”. Martin also estimated 'activists have delayed $60 million in exports and $100,000 in royalties per train.'

In popular culture

Eric Serge Herbert was featured in the comic strip "First Dog on the Moon".

See also

• Greenhouse gas emissions by Australia
• Ende Gelände