Environmental activist group Blockade Australia plans to continue protests, which have already stopped passenger trains and coal movements into one of the world’s biggest coal ports for more than a week.
For the past nine days, activists have targeted strategic parts of the rail corridor, stopping not only coal trains from reaching the Port of Newcastle, in the New South Wales Hunter region, but commuter trains too.
Transport for NSW said more than 200 passenger services between the Hunter Valley and Newcastle had been cancelled and replaced with buses, due to at least 19 illegal protests since Tuesday last week.
Blockade Australia spokesperson Brad Homewood said the group felt like it “doesn’t have a choice” but to take protest action.
“We feel like direct action, non-violent, is the most effective thing we can do right now,” he said.
“I can confirm that it’s not over yet, but I can’t tell you exactly how many more days to go.”
Mr Homewood said in the broader context, the amount of disruption the group has caused is “relatively minor.”
“We just ask people when we’re talking about disruptions to think back to the Black Summer bushfires, think back to the Lismore floods,” he said.
“These things are just a window into a future world.”