Newcastle council – home to the world’s largest coal port – has banned a climate group from holding any events on its land after consulting the New South Wales premier, Chris Minns, who warned the council would be complicit in any “illegal activities that occur at these protests”.
On Tuesday night the council’s independent lord mayor, Gavin Morris, used his casting vote to ban any licensing of Rising Tide’s events, claiming in a mayoral minute that the group had “broken the trust and faith of the Newcastle community” by defying police directions during past protests.
Rising Tide holds an annual event where thousands of protesters wade into the port with kayaks and rafts over the course of the six-day protest to blockade coal ships. The protest includes camping on council land and a music festival where major Australian bands have played, including Midnight Oil frontman Peter Garrett.
The protest is run to draw attention to the group’s demands for the immediate cancellation of all new fossil fuel projects, the end of coal exports from Newcastle by ۲۰۳۰, and taxing fossil fuel profits at ۷۸% to fund community and industrial transitions.
During the ۲۰۲۴ protest, the Minns government attempted to stop the event from going ahead after it put in place around the port a four-day maritime exclusion zone, which criminalised entering the water. But just as the protest was kicking off, the supreme court found the government had acted improperly and ruled the exclusion zone invalid after Rising Tide challenged it.
During the event ۱۷۳ protesters were charged, but in August police withdrew charges against ۱۲۵ of those people.
For the ۲۰۲۵ blockade, the government and the police did not make an attempt to stop the protest from going ahead. Police arrested and charged ۱۲۹ protesters who entered the water at the ۲۰۲۵ event, which stopped three coal ships from entering the port. They remain before the courts.
The group has a smaller paddle-out event planned for this Saturday ahead of their annual protest, which will next be held in February.
The group were before the NSW supreme court on Wednesday for the Saturday event after the police knocked back their application for a form ۱ permit. The court is expected to decide later on Wednesday if it will support the police’s decision to not provide the protesters protection from being charged under the Summary Offences Act.
Minns wrote to the council ahead of the motion being passed saying it was “not possible for the council to distance itself from the illegal activities that occur at these protests”.
He wrote that the protest is only possible through the council’s licensing of the events at a local park.
“While I completely understand the right to protest and the need to protect lawful protest, we need to ensure that protests occur in a safe way, and not in a manner which disrupts shipping traffic at the Port of Newcastle,” he wrote.
after newsletter promotion
“Rising Tide has a history that indicates their intent is to disrupt the shipping channel of your harbour without regard for the law.
“I acknowledge the independence of your council to make decisions. However I believe that formally endorsing this protest will put lives at risk and make NSW police’s job impossible.”
The minister for the Hunter and police, Yasmin Catley, who was also consulted on the motion, wrote to the council supporting its decision, labelling Rising Tide “bad faith actors”.
“They flouted the ruling of the supreme court in ۲۰۲۴ prohibiting their assembly and ignored the statutory requirements for holding a protected protest entirely in ۲۰۲۵ resulting in ۱۴۱ arrests.”
A Rising Tide spokesperson, Zack Schofield, said: “Desperate attempts like this to suppress protest are proof that Rising Tide has been effective in building pressure against the world’s largest coal port.
“We intend to exercise our right to protest because the world is burning, it is flooding, our climate is collapsing and time is running out. Paddle for the Planet will go ahead this Saturday at Horseshoe Beach, as will future protests.”
