Nearly 100 climate protesters are fronting a Newcastle court over a 30-hour blockade of the world's largest coal port, in November last year. Group 'rising tide' had organised the protest, which used kayaks and floats to obstruct the waterway.
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00:00 The first cohort of 99 protesters that took part in a blockade of the port of Newcastle
00:07 in November last year have been dealt with in Newcastle local court this morning. They'd
00:12 all been charged with using a vessel to obstruct a waterway, but all of their matters this
00:17 morning had been dismissed, no convictions were recorded and there were no fines issued
00:22 either. The magistrate, Stephen Olishlager, noted that all of the matters this morning,
00:26 the people were all of good character and had done a lot of work volunteering in their
00:31 communities. He said that the protest action was not selfish and that they had acted out
00:38 of concern for climate change. There were students aged from 20 years old up to aged
00:43 pensioners aged in their 80s who fronted court this morning. We spoke to some of them outside
00:48 after the proceedings, including Bryce Ham, a 20-year-old local student.
00:53 It's a great mood. This is the biggest civil disobedience action for climate justice in
00:57 Australia's history. There's 99 people here today in court and we all strongly feel a
01:03 sense of comradeship for taking this action to call on the federal government to stop
01:08 approving new coal mines and to limit the coal exports from the port of Newcastle.
01:13 It's been a long day in court getting through 99 matters to do with this blockade.
01:18 [BLANK_AUDIO]