How police try to shut down climate protests

Tell me about last year's blockade. What was it like out on the water.

We actually had a storm roll in, a little squall just before four pm, and the rain was lashing down and there were some lightning strikes and we were thinking, geez, we're not going to be able to get on the water. And then all of a sudden, the clouds parted at about three point thirty and we could see dolphins coming in through the harbor and then it was go time.

A massive protest is underway at Newcastle Port by a climate defense group in what could be the largest civil disobedience action in Australia's history.

We paddled out into the middle of the channel. We were waiting for that four pm deadline to see what would happen, to see what the cops would do, because of course that was the end of our quarter.

Proof period and you were one of the arrests that day.

Yeah, that's right.

Can I ask your personal decision to stay out past four pm? What drove you to do that?

I think I wanted to be part of history.

From sports media, I'm Daniel James. This is seven AM a year on for one of the biggest environmental protests in Australian history. The activists behind it a group called Rising Tide, preparing to blockade's Newcastle Coalport once again, but they've hit a stumbling block that saw the protest as challenged in the Supreme Court before the blockade had ever begun.

Yeah, I can tell you that they formed in two thousand and five in Newcastle, which is two hours north of Sydney, and that they're one of several blockade groups in Australia. But even though they're all galvanized around climate action, they each have different philosophies towards civil disobedience. So Rising

There were so many in this country, particularly in the coal industry, who were not concerned with what is going to be.

Another person who was arrested was Zach Schofield.

So Hi, my name's Zach. I'm a Newcastle local law student and I've been an organizer with Rising Tide for the last two years.

Zach told me that he basically grew up in the shadow of this coalport, which is the biggest of its kind in the world.

Can hear the foghorns overnight and you can go to the beach and see the ships lined up just offshore. I would count them with my mum. I suppose it took a while to realize that, you know what's being exported there, that's death.

And Zach told me that when it came to doing a blockade again this year, you know, he pointed out that we had the hottest year globally on record. He pointed out all of the new minor approvals and expansions, so there really wasn't any question of not doing it

So how did that happen?

Yeah, so it started when they submitted their form one. It's a notice of intention that you send to the Police Commissioner that you want to hold a protest, and it's just you know, two pieces of paper, five little sections that you fill out. And yet it's this little piece of paperwork that's at the center of all this. I spoke to Brandy Coglin. She's a single mom in Newcastle and she's also a lawyer. It was actually her name on the Form one that they submitted. So let's be clear.

The Form one is not a request for permission to hold a public assembly. You don't need permission to protest in Australia. All a Form one does is provide an opportunity for police and protesters to work together to ensure our shared goal of everybody's safety at the public assembly and essentially suspend certain police powers so that the people gathering can have some peace of mind that they won't be issued with move on orders or charged with certain abstraction offenses.

Once you've submitted a Form one to the Police Commissioner, there's a couple of things that can happen next. The first is that the police can authorize the form outright. Maybe there's a bit of back and forth about you know, conditions or locations, but the protest goes ahead, and that's what happened last year. The people that were arrested were the ones who stayed out on the water intentionally passed

Right, so take us inside the courtroom. How did it play out?

Inside the courtroom? The police were effectively arguing why the protest shouldn't go ahead on the basis of things like safety on the water and economic disruption to the port, to which Rising Tide had to defend.

It's quite a bit of work to appear in the Supreme Court. We have to get affidavits from, you know, witnesses who are going to be presenting evidence on our safety plans and strategic plans.

I talked to Zak who at times he was standing outside the doors kind of straining to listen in to hear how it was going.

You know, we got some amazing evidence from folks about the amount of economic disruption this would actually cause, you know, who would be suffering any losses, if anyone.

And then Brandy Coglin, whose name is on the Form one, she was even cross examined.

I'm no stranger to court proceedings, but even for me it was incredibly stressful, incredibly time consuming. I was either in court or at my computer working on the case for twenty hours a day over the course of ten days.

And then it was on the final day, which was November seven, that Justice Fagan delivered his verdict on the protest, which was the court ruled in favor of the police.

So I was in the courtroom when the judgment was handed down and Justice Fagan came in and said that he was giving the police the sought order to not have Form one go ahead, and he walked out, what.

Does that actually mean?

It means the protest is officially prohibited, and it also means there's no option to appeal. Rising tide say they'll still go ahead with the protest, which they'll do alongside a police force that now has a full suite of powers and what's more, challenges like this to becoming more and more common, and they're set against a backdrop of a nationwide crackdown on the right to protest.

After the break, why it's more challenging to hold a protest than ever before? Shane, It sounds like the Supreme Court challenged to stop this protest by Rising Tide, all hinged on this form one, which I've never heard of. What makes this piece of paperwork so important?

Yeah, I mean it was the form one that really got me interested in this store because just a few weeks before Rising Tide we're in the Supreme Court. There was another group in the exact same situation, the Palestine Action Group, who were challenged over their Form one for rallies planned around October seven. They ended up reaching an agreement with the police outside of court, but it still got me thinking how this could happen twice in one month.

Whilst demonstrators went through a repertoire of slogans, the court began reminding me. Fifty three people arrested on Saturday night, but before midday another seven people were in jail.

And it was in the wake of these protests that the Form one was born because the government wanted to use it to improve the relationship between police some protesters, bringing them together so they could set boundaries and therefore reduce violence and reduce arrests. I even had to look back at what was said in Parliament in nineteen seventy nine when it was introduced, and the New South Wales Attorney General even called it the greatest recognition of the right to assemble.

But it sounds like that's changed now.

Yeah, I mean, speaking to advocates, there is a sense that its usage has been changing quite a bit. I'm told there were pretty much no police challenges until around two thousand and three. That's when lawyers started hearing about it more often, and it really kicked up a gear again in twenty twenty two when the new South Wales State government under Premier Perite brought in anti protest laws that at the time were the most punitive laws in Australia. People have the right to free speech.

We promote that.

He brought in tough fines and even potential jail time for protesters who obstructed things likes and railways.

We've passed the laws.

We'll throw the book at these people because their behavior is completely unacceptable.

And since then that advocates say, Form one has been less about bringing everyone to the table and as function more as a kind of protest permit. Because now if a Form one isn't authorized by the police, there's a threat of jail time as soon as your protest starts, I should say as well. I did ask the New South Wales Police about the changing use of the Form one and they told me that, you know, the vast majority of cases they do authorize a form usually with

So what does all this say about how protests are changing in Australia.

Yeah, so I Form one at the end of the day, it's just, you know, one small part of a much bigger picture. We know that, you know, in the past two decades there's been forty nine anti protest laws enacted in Australia. Human rights law centers say many of them are confusing and vague. We know that in the entire decade up until twenty twenty one, only one person was in prison for protesting, and since then we've had nine. Many more have been arrested and subjected to really tough

Certainly, I know where I'm from, Shane. In Victoria, the police Une is pushing for a similar system to the Form one system that you have there. So it definitely feels like there's a shift from a police perspective to get the balance right between peaceful assembly versus the cost of disruption. But there's also a concern that this is going too far.

Yeah, definitely, And I think what you're getting out there as well is that there does need to be this balance struck. But should it rest with the police or with the government of the day to decide where that line is drawn? Especially you know, in the case of Rising Tide, these are protests that have critical messages against the government's own decisions.

So Rising Tide has said that the blockade will still go ahead. What is the group risking in doing that? How could it unfold?

The protest is still very much going ahead. In fact, yesterday afternoon we saw hundreds of kayaks paddle out into the harbor, and without the protection of the Form one authorization, it does mean we're likely to see arrests and charges. There was one small victory for the protesters though, so Transport New South Wales had earlier tried to make the entire coalport a maritime exclusion zone, which meant that anyone who even dip their tories into the water could be

Oh God, no, no, no, we're certainly not canceling it. A lot of folks are feeling more determined than ever to come because they see this as basically a political attack. But the message that it sends is that the government doesn't want us to be on the water. They don't want us to be protesting. At the end of the day, you know, we're targeting the fossil fuel industry. We don't need to make anyone else's lives harder than they need to be, but we need to assert our rights.

Shane, thank you so much for your time.

Thank you, Daniel.

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