Australia’s climate future is horrifyingly bleak. Already the continent has warmed by around 1.6 degrees, increasing the frequency and intensity of heatwaves, floods and bushfires. The recently released <a href="https://www.acs.gov.au/pages/national-climate-risk-assessment">National Climate Risk Assessment</a> estimates that, at 3 degrees of warming, 1.5 million people will be at risk of coastal flooding. 
As we barrel towards catastrophe, the federal Labor government has its foot firmly on the accelerator. Since taking office in 2022, it has approved 31 new fossil fuel projects. <a href="https://australiainstitute.org.au/report/fossil-fuel-subsidies-in-australia-2025/">According to a report commissioned by </a>the<a href="https://australiainstitute.org.au/report/fossil-fuel-subsidies-in-australia-2025/"> Australia Institute,</a> in the past year, state and federal governments provided the fossil fuel industry with $14.9 billion in subsidies—equivalent to $28,381 per minute. 
From 27 November to 2 December, thousands of people from across Australia will join <a href="https://www.risingtide.org.au/pb2025">The People’s Blockade of the World’s Largest Coal Port</a> at the port of Newcastle. Rising Tide, the event organiser, argues that we need to step up our defence of the climate by taking mass direct action to stop the coal ships. At <a href="https://redflag.org.au/article/turning-the-tide-the-fight-to-blockade-the-worlds-largest-coal-port">last year’s blockade</a>, people power prevailed over repeated government attempts to shut down the protest. Seven thousand people mobilised over ten days; 173 people were arrested while obstructing the shipping channel.
Zack Schofield, an organiser with Rising Tide and recently awarded Young Environmentalist of the Year by the Bob Brown Foundation, spoke to Red Flag about the upcoming action. 
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What led you to get involved in Rising Tide?
Climate activism has always been part of my political background. It has an outsized presence in Newcastle, where I grew up. The city is home to the world’s largest coal port, which alone is responsible for about 1 percent of total global carbon emissions, which is pretty extraordinary. Rising Tide and the people’s blockade also have a history in the town: the original iteration was active in Newcastle from 2005 until 2012.
After the pandemic, one of the Rising Tide core organisers pitched their idea to me: restart the organisation with a long-term strategy, principles and a desire to grow beyond a small clique of radical environmentalists. I found this compelling and decided to throw my lot in. In the last three years, it’s grown into something that I think fills a serious gap in the Australian climate movement. And I’m really proud that it’s based in my hometown.
Rising Tide seems to revolve around the annual blockade of the coal port. What’s so special about the blockade as a form of protest? 
The blockade of the port of Newcastle is a phenomenal tactic. A tactic doesn’t make a movement or a strategy, but it can underpin it in some important ways. For one, mobilising a significant number of people is relatively easy. Newcastle has a progressive population, and it’s pretty accessible for folks in the metropole. The city is also, conveniently, right next to the source of the problem: the coal port. You can see it with your eyes, it’s easy to access, and there are several infrastructural choke points. Lastly, being on the water adds a certain X-factor in terms of participant experience. The photos that come out of these actions are broadcast around the world—it just looks a bit more interesting and joyful than other actions. 
At the moment, the blockade is a form of civil disobedience, or storytelling with a material target. We’re putting ourselves in the way of the problem to tell a story about why there’s a problem and why people should do something about it. We impact the company’s bottom line a bit, but not enough for it to really matter. The objective is to build that mass of organised people to the level of civil resistance, where we become a force to be negotiated with, rather than policed away. By growing our numbers, we can make a material impact and actually stop business as usual.
What are your thoughts on the Labor Party in power?
I have dropped to new levels of cynicism that I didn’t think were achievable. They’re either utter cowards or the most nihilistic bastards imaginable. But even an ALP true believer would have to acknowledge at this point that external pressure is the only way to secure better climate policy in this country. So, whatever your take on the Labor Party, Rising Tide welcomes you to come along and take action with us. 
You’ve been active in the Palestine movement in Sydney and were arrested recently alongside former Greens candidate Hannah Thomas outside SEC Plating. Do you think the issues of climate justice and Palestinian liberation are linked?
Absolutely, they are linked by two problems: colonialism and profit seeking. The colonisation of the global South created the extractive industries we see in Australia, which is why First Nations people have always been at the forefront of the fight against fossil capital. And we know there are massive, untapped gas reserves just off the coast of Gaza. It’s one reason why Gaza is an attractive bit of land to claim for the apartheid Israeli state. 
Capitalist profit seeking is destroying the planet, but it’s also the engine room of fascism and war. Israel is very good at both of those things. And Australia, similarly, is not only a major exporter of fossil fuels, but it also has serious ties to that profit-making machinery of war. That’s why we were outside SEC Plating, it’s a company that contributes to the F-35 program, producing jets used to bomb children in Gaza. 
You really do just have to follow the money to understand the politics of power in this world. It’s why the fossil fuel industry wields influence over our government, it’s why Israel is so influential in the Middle East, and it’s why they have committed genocide against the Palestinian people. 
Last year, the Minns government tried to stop the blockade. Do you know what the government will throw at Rising Tide this year?
I don’t want to speculate because I expect they’ll come up with something we’ve never heard of before. But the fact of the matter is, this is a fight. I’m really happy that Rising Tide is prepared to run at fights, because frankly, that’s what it takes to make change—and it is in the fighting that people get inspired to join us. And the more people join us, the easier those fights are to win. 
Last year, 173 people were arrested. Some were dragged from their kayaks, others had their paddles stolen by police, and some were assaulted. But everyone who was arrested knew exactly what they were getting into; they knew it had to be done, and it can be an empowering experience to break bad laws. I think it’s time for activists of all kinds to stop justifying themselves and become the immovable object—the thing that’s going to happen, one way or another—and dare our opponents to live with the consequences of their climate vandalism. 
What do you think socialist politics has to offer in the fight for climate justice?
I think materialist politics are critical to understanding how the world works and how change happens. Socialism also has a tradition of organised mass action, which is what’s required to make change. Socialists understand that change doesn’t come from ideas alone or radicalism alone; it comes from actually becoming powerful enough and accessible enough to as many people as possible to shape the dominant politics of the day. 
Rising Tide is also a part of reviving these traditions. And I think this commitment to mass politics is one of the things that has stood us in good stead. We live in unprecedented times. I think people involved in politics today need to be open to experimenting with the traditions of the past and taking what works from them to meet the moment that we face.

Lily Campbell

Zack Schofield on the upcoming people’s blockade of the Newcastle port

History often happens without warning and, even more often, against all our wishes and best efforts. Sunday, 3 August, was different. Hundreds of thousands woke up ready and determined to make history themselves on the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
The March for Humanity, a protest against 22 months of genocide and starvation in Gaza, was historic, not least for its sheer size. Sydney has not seen a protest so big since the march against the Iraq war more than twenty years ago. “Massive, unprecedented and huge”, Jewish anti-Zionist journalist Antony Loewenstein announced from the speakers’ platform in Lang Park. There’s no question the march exceeded 100,000 participants, protest organisers predicting the final tally could be triple that.
Half of Sydney’s CBD became a protest-only zone. Helicopters buzzed overhead, drowned out as the day went on by cowbells, drums, whistles and the banging of pots and pans to signify the starvation gripping Gaza. 
“Hello passengers”, said a prerecorded voice on the Wynyard train station loudspeaker. “If you’re here for the protest ...”. I waited at the top of the station escalators to meet up with members of my union. One wrote in our group chat that her train from Glenfield, two hours before the protest, was composed of just two groups: “One: Palestine protesters. Two: Footy fans”. Another chimed in: “We just came through Lidcombe and more and more passengers are getting on ... All walks of life. We stand together, it’s brilliant”.
They weren’t wrong. Up the escalators, in progressively larger instalments, came what looked like all of society. Every conceivable age and background; from choirs, unions, religious groups and political parties; from every suburb of Sydney, every corner of NSW and interstate.
The crowd exited the station and stepped out into truly appalling weather. The rain came in angry fits, and vain hopes raised by fleeting rays of sunshine were repeatedly dashed. Yet this was a day that masses of people wouldn’t have missed for the world. A very dapper man walked past me in Lang Park, hardly giving his beautiful shoes a second glance as they sank into mud. When children are dying of human-made hunger, or shot dead for sadistic target practice, would anyone let a bit of rain hold them back?
I tried to observe what I could by weaving through the crowd. The fastest way to move was by sloshing along the kerb of York Street, where a small river was flowing. Yet the people just kept coming. Homemade placards (“Penny Wong is a ‘non-lethal’ murderer”), keffiyehs galore, shirts with every conceivable slogan. Umbrellas, umbrellas, umbrellas. Each time I returned somewhere—Wynyard Station, Lang Park, or the woefully under-prepared Domino’s Pizza—the crowd was impossibly huger than before, as if I were returning on a different day.
The march was also historic because it was opposed by both major political parties and police. Two other great protest marches across the bridge—the 2000 March for Reconciliation and the 2023 World Pride march—were endorsed and even led by most of official society. The March for Humanity, however, was fought tooth and nail by NSW Labor Premier Chris Minns and the state’s police force. Minns lied that the rally would plunge the city into “chaos”. Federal Greens Senator Mehreen Faruqi (recently sanctioned by Anthony Albanese’s parliament for silently holding a sign protesting the starvation of children) explained from the platform: “It was never about traffic, it was never about logistics, it was always about protecting Israel and the Labor government from accountability”.
Minns made it clear that he opposed the bridge march regardless of how much notice was given. The NSW police took protest organisers to court to try stop it from going ahead. The outcry and overwhelming support from more than 300 organisations tipped the court ruling in our favour. “We’re here today because people power won”, Amnesty International representative Mohamed Duar told the crowd. Duar’s father still has the key to his house in Palestine that was stolen from his family by Israel in 1967. “I promised my father that one day he would be able to return, and I intend to keep my promise”. Sporting legend Craig Foster also spoke, and anti-war hero Julian Assange marched at the front with the lead banner.
In an encouraging sign, more trade unions than ever endorsed the protest and its pro-Palestinian demands. Flags and banners represented the National Tertiary Education Union, the Nurses and Midwives’ Association and the Electrical Trades Union, among others. As Maritime Union of Australia state secretary Paul Keating told the crowd, organised workers have played an essential role in struggles against war and racism throughout Australian history, from Vietnam to South African apartheid. “I say to my fellow trade unions, if ever there was a time to come together and be a force for good, now is the time”.
As part of my transport job, I drive over this bridge almost every week, and it’s still beautiful every time I do. But that did not leave me any better prepared for approaching the bridge on foot in the middle of the road. The slow but dogged pace, the onwards push of the crowd, the sprawling out as the road widened and the surging mosh when it narrowed again. The bridge loomed ahead like something to conquer, and the crowd moved inexorably to take it. Just as I had this thought, we began to chant: “Whose bridge? Our bridge!”
Cheers erupted as our contingent finally passed under the iconic steel structure. Beneath its magnificent arches, flanked by those gigantic hangers and moving cheek by jowl for a righteous cause—I have never seen the Harbour Bridge from a more beautiful vantage point. Even the bridge climbers above us, who would have seen the march in its full glory, missed something by being so far away from the action (though many raised their fists in solidarity).
Exactly halfway across the bridge, I felt something almost dreamlike. There were a hundred thousand people on this bridge. For a moment, this most famous Australian landmark belonged to Palestine. A brief pause in the chanting. The crowd was enveloped in silence and the sky in fog. I turned to the activist next to me. Did he feel it too? He nodded. “It’s like being in the eye of a storm”.
The crowd’s spirits were not dampened by the endlessly renewed bouts of rain, nor by the police’s sudden decision to block the end of the bridge and make everyone march back the other way. A protester, who on any other day looked like she worked in the quietest part of the library, fumed past: “It’s just a fucking power trip. Absolutely pathetic fuckers cannot hack that we beat them in court”. But perhaps for once in their life, police were telling the truth: at up to six times the anticipated size, the rally might have been simply too big to take the planned route into North Sydney. Not a bad problem to have.
Turning back did not mean giving up. The crowd left the bridge in perfect safety and order, proceeding all the way back to Wynyard Station, and then spilling out onto George Street until reaching Town Hall. “Show me what democracy looks like!” called the megaphoners; “This is what democracy looks like!”, we replied. 
After the march, leading Palestine Action Group organiser and socialist activist Josh Lees wrote on social media that it was “an absolutely incredible day. Minns predicted chaos. Instead, we had what we knew we would: a beautiful outpouring of humanity, marching side by side to end a genocide and demand our government sanction Israel. We’ve sent an enormous message to the world. Today the people spoke, and they said stop the genocide! Free Palestine!”
Each of those individuals amongst the people made a choice to give up their Sunday, catch overflowing trains into pouring rain, stand for hours and march for hours more, and rail against a genocide that Australia’s entire political, media and university establishment has covered up, excused and enabled. And by the sounds of it, most of those who came had been willing to do so even if all the powers that be succeeded in their uncompromising efforts to ban the march. “I was coming either way”, my GP’s receptionist told me the day before, when the court ruling came in. Facing the horror of this modern-day Holocaust, the spirit that captured Sydney on Sunday is exactly what gives socialists hope in the possibility of a better world—one run by ordinary people and not our genocidal masters. 
There’s one more reason that Sunday made history. For the first time ever, the Shit-Eater of the Year Award has been called five months early. Judges say they’ve never seen any nominee, let alone a sitting premier, eat so much shit over a single weekend. Give us a big grin, Chris Minns. With a movement this determined to end the unbearable slaughter of Gaza, there’ll be plenty more for you to come.

April Holcombe

Making history on Sydney Harbour Bridge: massive March for Humanity

The Sydney Harbour Bridge is one of the world's iconic landmarks. The Palestine Action Group has organised for tens of thousands to march across it on Sunday 3 August to oppose the genocide in Gaza. We’ve just won a significant victory in the NSW Supreme Court: the NSW Police application to overturn the right to march has been struck down.
The right to protest this Sunday is a serious win. As Josh Lees, Palestine Action Group organiser, told media during the court proceedings, “Humanity in Gaza is at stake, and our humanity here is at stake”. The entire population of Gaza is starving. The Israeli aid blockade and constant bombardment have killed tens, if not hundreds of thousands, of Palestinians already. The situation is acute, and it calls for urgent action.
The outpouring of public support for this protest has been immense. The original Instagram post advertising the event has been viewed nearly a million times. More than 300 organisations have endorsed the rally. At least eleven trade unions, including the Maritime Union, the United Workers Union, the Nurses and Midwives’ Association and the Electrical Trades Union, have pledged their support. Political organisations, NGOs, religious groups, and cultural institutions are on board, and the list of endorsements includes celebrities such as Stella Donnelly and Craig Foster. It’s been enough to pressure Sydney mayor Clover Moore to lend her approval to the rally, and fifteen NSW Parliamentarians, including five Labor members, signed a statement declaring their support for the protest. Even Sydney’s most popular meme page “monkeyboy.sydney” has shared the protest details.
Despite this, Labor Premier Chris Minns and the NSW Police have done everything in their power to prevent the rally from going ahead. On Thursday, Minns told the media that "the last thing we want, and the last thing police want, is chaos in Sydney streets". On Friday, the police took Lees to court on behalf of the organisers, claiming the protest on the bridge would be a threat to public safety. But it's not impossible to close the Harbour Bridge, and “public safety” was a cheap excuse to deny us the right to protest. 
The bridge has been closed plenty of times: twice in 2023 for a Ryan Gosling film and the World Pride march, in 2000 for the Walk for Reconciliation and in 2009 for a picnic. It’s also regularly shut for marathons, including one coming up in four weeks. None of these events have caused threats to the public, and in most cases they are far less urgent than taking a stand against genocide. In response to the argument made by the police that it would create disturbance to the public to allow the protest to go ahead, the Supreme Court judge was right to find that, “if matters such as this were to be determinative, no assembly which would cause disruption would be permitted”. 
Chris Minns and the police did everything in their power to suggest that the protest was already or could be banned. This was a lie. We have the right to demonstrate in NSW. But the fact that they threw everything at preventing us tells you something important about how society works, and why socialists think mass politics matters.
The late Marxist cultural critic John Berger once wrote of mass demonstrations that they pose to the state a challenge—either the capitalist class and the state repress them, and in so doing show their true, unjust motivations; or they're forced in the face of mass numbers and determination of ordinary people to let them go ahead, and in so doing reveal that there's a greater power than theirs below the surface. Our rally is not a revolutionary rehearsal. But it's important that we won this small test of wills between the forces of injustice and imperialism, and the humanity of ordinary Sydneysiders standing up to a genocide. The world is watching Gaza, and the world will be watching us.

Zack Schofield on the upcoming people’s blockade of the Newcastle port

Making history on Sydney Harbour Bridge: massive March for Humanity

Thousands will march across the Harbour Bridge for Gaza

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