Uni Students for Climate Justice and Fireproof Australia/Stop Fossil Fuel Subsidies held a public forum on Saturday evening discussing climate activism, police repression and the anti-protest laws that have seen the criminalisation of protesters in the last few years.
Climate activist Deanna “Violet” Coco and long-time socialist Diane Fieldes were guest speakers at the forum. Coco brought international attention to the climate crisis for blocking one lane of the Sydney Harbour Bridge last year in a bid to stir up about the impending climate emergency.
She was sentenced to 15 months in prison, with a non-parole period of eight months. Her case was the first where a protester had been convicted under the new Roads Amendment (Major Bridges and Tunnels) Regulation which carries harsher penalties for ‘illegal protests’.
Coco spoke about the continued rising temperature, expressing a fear for the future where there was “no credible pathway to stay below 1.5 degrees global warming”.
She described a “Hell on Earth trajectory” where increased carbon emissions and fossil fuels as the largest contributors to climate change would see the world move into an uninhabitable Earth.
Criticism of government subsidising fossil fuel companies
Diane Fieldes speaking on Draconian anti-protest laws and anti-uranium mining movement. Photo: Christine Lai
Coco attended the public forum via zoom due to her bail conditions and spoke about the housing crisis in Lismore where she was staying, condemning the government for failing to rehouse thousands of displaced people after the floods last year.
“Meanwhile they’re [the government] subsidising the fossil fuel industry at $22 000 a minute”, Coco said.
Diane Fieldes, Socialist Alternative member and long-time activist who was arrested at a Vietnam War moratorium in Australia, reflected on her time as a protester in the early 70s during the anti-uranium movement.
Mining uranium, known as “yellowcake ”, was heavily objected to by the majority of the Australian public, especially for its role in “destroying Indigenous land which was counterposed with Indigenous land rights”, Fieldes said.
Early activism campaigns condemning the war
Fieldes spoke about the early 1980s campaigns for nuclear disarmament, and the power in “mobilising as many people as possible”. She looked to people like Jim Assenbruck, a railway worker who was suspended from his job after refusing to load materials for the Mary Kathleen uranium mine, as prime examples of radical activism and defiance.
Assenbruck’s suspension resulted in a national strike of railway workers, and widely known as the first anti-nuclear strike internationally.
“In 1977, we were able to force the Labor Party to adopt a policy committing to a moratorium on uranium mining for five years, and generated an ongoing campaign for civil liberties”, Fieldes said.
Anti-democratic protest laws considered “repressive”
Blockade Australia protestors being arrested by Police during climate protests in June. Photo: Facebook/Blockade Australia.
Coco reflected on her experience post-arrest, where she spent three days in custody in “the seventh circle of Hell”. Following a $10 000 assurity that her mother had put forward, Coco spent 126 days with a split curfew where she had to be home between the hours of 7-10am and 4-7pm, because she was “a danger to the community in peak-hour traffic”.
Coco declared a need to continue to fight against repressive anti-protest laws, quoting Martin Luther King’s “one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws”, and defended ongoing climate activism in the fight for a better world.
“Australia is the largest exporter of carbon emissions. They are the death dealers and we have been failed by the government. This government has always been designed to be exploitative”, Coco said.
Fieldes agreed with Coco’s statement, adding that “there has never been a Golden Age for the Labor Party while running Australian capitalism”.
Organising rallies and actions as: “More than single-issue activism”
When asked what people could do to get involved with activism, Coco mentioned the upcoming School Strike for Climate on March 3 and encouraged panel attendees to turn up, to engage with Extinction Rebellion and other activist groups that are involved with climate organising.
Coco has a number of previous convictions for protesting in NSW, the ACT and Victoria, and defended the role of protest in the climate movement, referencing fellow environmental activist Greta Thunberg’s statement calling on people to ‘act as if our house is on fire’.
Both panellists condemned premier Dominic Perrottet for his statement in response to Coco’s sentencing, where he said this outcome was “pleasing to see”, while insisting that protests should “not inconvenience people”. Coco and Fieldes also denounced Labor leader Chris Minns for his support of the laws too.
“At the end of the day, you’re talking about a situation where mass protests were shutting down half the city and in a repeated fashion,” Minns said.
Fieldes echoed Coco’s statement, declaring it was vital to “not just be a single-issue activist”, speaking about how issues of climate activism, anti-uranium mining, the Vietnam war and all social issues were “directly linked to capitalism”.
“Our civil liberties are constantly under siege, and we can only fight that through militancy”, Fieldes said.
