Stopping Coal

Getting arrested in Muluubinba/ Newcastle

I’ve never been on the run from police before.

Freja, Jac and I launched ourselves out of the car as soon as the time for action ticked over. We had been cruising the streets, car parks and park on the Stockton side of the Hunter River- Coquon estuary, generally known as the Newcastle Shipping Channel, for the previous 20 minutes. Freja had nonchalantly walked along the waterfront, checking out the best spots for us to scramble down the rock beaching that lined the channel.

There were a lot of police around. And it seemed that their numbers multiplied as soon as we left the car, in our swimmers, each of us carrying a bright orange highly obvious inflatable float.

Quick, here, Freja insisted, crouching down behind a tree 15 metres or so from the water. A stretch of grass, a garden bed of closely planted clumps of strappy greenery, and a walking path along the waterfront still lay between us and the water, with police positioned every twenty metres or so along the path. The tree didn’t hide us very well at all. We knew that the only thing to do was to make a run for it.

We headed for the garden bed, speedily but gingerly hopping through it in our bare feet. Then Freja and Jac sprinted off to the left; I headed to the right - the best chance of any of us making it to the water was to spread out.

The police called out to us. ‘We’re not stupid, we can see you’.

I laughed to myself. We weren’t stupid either - we had a job to do. I spied two pairs of police on the path ahead of me- those on the left were looking towards Freja and Jac, those on the right were looking the other way, distracted talking to someone. This was my moment. I made a beeline between the two. No looking back.

Spot the activist. I’m right in the middle of this photo!

I made it to the rocks, which were big, sharp-sided and a bit slippery. I slowed down, telling myself the last thing I wanted to do here was to fall over. I managed not to! and plunged into the water. I’d made it. I was in the shipping channel. Mission accomplished. Now it was just a matter of waiting for the police boats.

Of which there were many. Jet skis, inflatable boats, and the Darth Vader machines - black zodiacs crewed by a posse of black-uniformed police. I swam out a bit to make sure I was well and truly in the forbidden zone of the shipping channel - but there didn’t seem to be much value in swimming a long distance - there was going to be no escaping or evading the police for very long.

I waved to one of our buddies onshore. There were other people watching on too.

‘Get a job’, one of them yelled out.

I called back. ‘I’ve got one’.

I thought about having had this job for 45 years now. I first learnt about climate change during my science degree when I was 20.

‘But this is serious.’ I had thought then. ‘The world needs to be doing something about this’.

The die was cast for my life as an activist, with a sense of agency and empowerment to do what I could as part of a movement of people to get the world to act on climate.

I swam a bit more. Then blew up the float a little. Rested my forearms on it, and contemplated the warm sunny morning, clear blue sky above steel grey water. 10am on a Sunday, in the shipping channel at Muluubinba/ Newcastle, the biggest export coal port in the world. The things you do. We were there to disrupt the coal boats; by being in the water we were aiming to stop a coal ship coming in.

There was a lot of police boat action on the other side of the channel - the Horseshoe Beach side, where the camp was, where other groups of swimmers had also swum out into the forbidden zone beyond the buoys. And a few police boats on our side that were going to get to me eventually.

The first one was an inflatable white boat, crewed by only one police officer. He called out ‘Good morning sir’.

‘Not sir’, I replied.

‘Oh, the short hair confused me’, he said.

I said good morning and commented that it was a lovely morning for a swim, and that the water was much warmer than my usual ocean swimming in Tasmania. He asked me whether I came from Tasmania and I didn’t answer.

I had already said too much. The advice from our legal team was to only give the minimum amount of information necessary.

He introduced himself, told me that everything was being videoed, and informed me that I was swimming in restricted waters and asked me to return to shore. I told him I wasn’t intending to do that. He told me that if I refused to return to shore then I was liable to be arrested by the police on the black boat under the Maritime Safety Act. He asked whether I understood that. I said I did.

He continued, asking why I was in the water that morning. He understood there were lots of fun things going on back at camp. I said that’s why they call it a protestival. There’s important protesting going on at the heart of all the fun. There’s a climate crisis to act on.

Then I shut up again, and swam off. May as well make it a bit harder for the police to come to me rather than sitting there quacking away like a sitting duck. Put my head under, noted the water was closer to fresh river water than salty sea water, and swam some strong strokes away from the boat.

Seargent Whiteboat followed me, keeping tabs on where I was. Darth Vader Zodiac approached. One of the six police onboard introduced himself over a megaphone. Repeated what Sergeant Whiteboat had said. Asked whether I would leave the restricted zone. No, I said. You’re under arrest he said. Please swim to the boat.

I replied ‘I think you need to come to me don’t you?’ He replied that if I didn’t swim to the boat and he needed to jump into the water to get me I might be liable for further charges. By this stage the zodiac had been manoeuvred closer towards me. I swam the few strokes to be alongside. Hold onto the rope on the side, said the officer, and two of his colleagues dragged me in, where I joined Freja and Jac who were already seated on the floor at the back of the boat.

I reached down the front of my bathers to retrieve my ID that I had fixed inside my bathers with duct tape. For the record, it stuck well, and laminated drivers licences survive being immersed in water for the period it takes to try and stop a coal ship! We had been advised that having ID with us was useful to speed up police processing - which once you’ve been arrested is not a bad thing to aim for, in contrast to the period before the arrest where stretching out the time it takes them to arrest you is an important thing to aim for. The more time and resources taken up for each arrest the better.

When all of my details had been entered into their tablet on the boat, we sped off, the six police forming a black wall above us as we powered through the water. Freja, Jac and I looked at each other, reached out to give each other a small hug and smiled. Job done. Jac was shivering and I noticed their feet were bleeding. I looked at mine and saw mine were as well.

We tied up at a small wharf some minutes later, in industrial grunge land, with a white marquee not far away: the Carrington Processing Centre where we had been advised in a briefing the night before that it was likely that we would be taken if arrested. A group of police was waiting for us on the wharf, one of whom was allocated to each of us. Mine introduced himself as Damon. I nodded. I’d had enough of talking to cops. We began to walk towards the marquee along a gravel path - which I did very slowly, delicately and painfully on my lacerated feet.Damon walked in front, looking around every so often to observe me hobbling along behind. His manner reminded me of walking with my mother with her walking frame- walking at the slow, contained pace that was required but with frustration bubbling through. Damon let me know that when we were released our arrestee support team would have thongs for us to wear but they weren’t available for this stretch. I later found out that our team had asked the police whether they could leave thongs for people on the wharf - but this was Not Allowed. Aiding and abetting I suppose. Lesson for next year - swimming shoes are essential.

The tent could cater for processing twenty or so arrestees, but there were only half a dozen or so of us in there as I finally limped in. Damon and I sat down opposite each other inside the tent, his camera on the desk between us, pointing at me. I was still holding my inflatable float which had a small ‘rising tide’ flag attached to it - I randomly thought I should position the flag so that it was in full view of the camera. Damon tried to chat. I didn’t reply. The silent type he said before he focussed on the work to be done.

I looked around. So many police, so many boats! I looked out towards the channel - another zodiac was unloading another load of arrestees. Imagine if all these resources being spent to repress our civil disobedience were spent shifting to us a fossil free future instead. When would our governments realise that we weren’t going to stop protesting because the health of the world and all life upon it is at stake. It’s not something people are going to give up on. So the sensible thing for governments to do is to take the climate catastrophe seriously. Seriously do something about it. Stop exporting coal. Have a plan to stop the mining, burning and export of all fossil fuels. Not just pretend, not just politically ‘manage’ the crisis, taking just enough action to convince enough people who aren’t really paying attention that something is being done, while staying sweet with their petrostate mates.

At the end of the interview I was given a small yellow piece of paper. A carbon copy of the Court Attendance Notice recording the charges against me.

’It is alleged that at 9.56AM on Sunday 30/1/2025 at Newcastle Harbour Channel Newcastle, the following offence was committed: LPC 103602, Section 18B/1 of the Marine Safety Act . Contravening notice prohibiting/ regulating use of vessel. Fail to comply with notice or direction’.

My case has been listed before Newcastle Local Court for 13 January 2026 at 9.30am.

With thongs! And my inflatable float and flag and Court Appearance Notice

The team - arrestees and support team, just before we headed back to camp

Section 18B of the Marine Safety Act allows the Minister to ‘exclude vessels and persons from a specified area for the safety of navigation in waters’, and to ‘allow an authorised officer to direct a person in an exclusion zone, to leave the exclusion zone, or comply with a restriction imposed in the notice’. And ‘the person must not, without reasonable excuse, fail to comply with the notice or direction’.

Interesting. I reckon I’ve got a reasonable excuse. I was drawing attention to the climate crisis. To the fact that the coal ships we were trying to stop are the vessels that the exclusion zone should really apply to if we were really concerned with marine safety, and indeed the safety of all life on our precious planet.

My excuse is that I’ve tried everything else to get action. I studied climate science. I’ve been a climate activist all my adult life. I am a founder of a political party that has always had serious action on climate at its heart. I have written, spoken, protested about the need for climate action. I have lobbied MPs. I was a Senator in the Australian Parliament for ten years, voting for climate action, speaking out in my first speech, my last speech and so many speeches in between about the climate catastrophe bearing down upon us like a runaway train.

My excuse is that I was operating with complete consistency with the objects of the Marine Safety Act which include ‘ensuring the safe operation of vessels in ports and other waterways’, and ‘promoting the responsible operation of vessels… so as to protect the safety and amenity of other users of those waters and the amenity of occupiers of adjoining land’.

I would argue that attempting to stop giant ships exporting massive amounts of coal to be burnt, polluting and heating our atmosphere with billions of tonnes of CO2 is completely consistent with these objectives, with the safe operations of vessels in ports and waterways, to protecting the safety and amenity of other users of those waters and the amenity of occupiers of adjoining land.

Think of the sea level rise embodied in all that coal once it’s burnt. Think of the wild weather, the cyclones that will be bearing down upon Newcastle in the not too distant future, as its climate becomes like the climate of north-east Queensland.

But funnily enough I don’t think legal arguments based on these very logical and sensible observations are going to carry much weight in court. The law is not set up to protect us from climate catastrophe. That’s why we are breaking it.

I am proud of being arrested on Sunday. I am proud of being one of over 150 people arrested over the weekend, and I want to thank the thousands of people who volunteered their time and expertise to make this protest possible. I am proud of being part of a global movement that is committed to taking the civil disobedience action that is needed to get action on climate. Thank you Rising Tide for organising this powerful protest for a fossil free future, for the sake of all people and all life we share our precious planet with.

I acknowledge and pay respect to the Awabakal people on whose lands the Rising Tide Protestival and People’s Blockade took place, and to all First Peoples of so -called Australia, including the Wurundjeri people in Naarm/ Melbourne where I live. Their care for country, their connection to country, and their resilience in the face of genocide and ecocide is profound and inspires and motivates me in my activism for justice for people and the planet. Always was and always will be Aboriginal Land.