In a white-walled room inside a community center in Sydney’s inner west, about 20 people sit in a circle.
One of them, a young man in a cap, begins to read from a pamphlet:
“Corporate and institutional power is driving the climate crisis and blocking climate action.”
He is a member of Blockade Australia, the protest group that shut down parts of Sydney in late June.
Today, June 26, is the day before that happened.
“The very system we’re in is one of domination, so to resist we have to be able to organize in a different way: organizing non-hierarchically and co-existing non-hierarchically.”
Seated on a gray carpeted tiled floor, the small audience nods in agreement as the young man in the cap continues.
“Australia’s blockade is a coordinated response that aims to develop a culture of effective resistance through strategic direct action.”
This is the planning and preparation workshop held 24 hours before the protests that prevented thousands of Sydney commuters from getting to work on time on 27 June.
“This is systemic, a system called Australia, a system that has been extracting and dispossessing on this continent for centuries.”
Phrases like “so-called Australia” are common parlance here. An Aboriginal flag stands out on the wall above the man addressing the group.
The message, basically, is this: Australia’s economy is inherently exploitative and extractive and if catastrophic global warming is to be avoided, Australia as we know it must be stopped in its tracks.
Not surprisingly, for politicians, the police and much of the public, this is a lot to swallow.
But it makes a lot of sense to Elizabeth Hartick, who is in the back of the room this Sunday, sitting on a stool.
“People keep telling us, isn’t there another way? Can’t you be more polite and write letters and do things through the proper channels?”
“But it didn’t work. It didn’t work.”
Elizabeth Hartick puts up Blockade Australia stickers on a Melbourne street. (ABC News: Danielle Bonica)
“The right to protest is on a slippery slope”
Elizabeth is a retired University of Melbourne researcher and administrator, and also a grandmother. She is 74 years old, but she has bright-eyed energy.
He has trained as a climate change protester in Melbourne with groups such as Extinction Rebellion. He has had run-ins with the police before, but has no convictions.
“I think what I can do with the last few decades of my life, [is] I got into the game to make noise and keep the focus on the issue,” he says.
Elizabeth has traveled here from Victoria to attend the workshop. There are classes on how to occupy the space non-violently and a medical briefing to tell people what to do if they are pepper sprayed.
But it’s the legal briefing Elizabeth has come to hear.
“The biggest thing is this problem with the punitive and repressive fines and prison terms that we’re being threatened with,” he says.
Elizabeth is referring to amendments to the NSW Highways Act, which were passed in April.
The changes make it an offense punishable by up to two years in prison and/or a $22,000 fine if someone damages or seriously disrupts or obstructs the Sydney Harbor Bridge or Tunnel or “other major roads”.
Everyone here, the day before the June protests, knows about these laws because the young woman leading the legal briefing talks about them:
“This is a scare tactic and it’s just one of the ways that this transmission of protest laws and human rights, the right to protest, is a bit of a slippery slope in so-called Australia.”
Elizabeth is alert and confident that she can avoid arrest.
“I think I can handle myself like I did in the past. If the police tell me to get off the road, I’ll just get off the road,” he says.
“So I’m pretty sure I can avoid getting arrested in that kind of situation.”
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The protest
It’s 8am on Monday 27 June and the Sydney Harbor Tunnel is in crisis.
In Sydney’s far north, a small white car has parked across several lanes, preventing thousands of commuters from getting to work on time.
Inside this car, a young woman is broadcasting via Facebook Live, talking on her phone with her bicycle around her neck locked to the steering wheel of the car.
“My name is Mali. I’m 22 years old. I’m currently locked in a car at the start of the Sydney Harbor Tunnel in protest of the climate destruction happening on this continent right now.”
Mali Cooper has traveled to Sydney from flood-ravaged Lismore.
“I’ve seen massive devastation up there this year with two floods in every 100 years that’s happened. That’s climate change. It’s here. It’s happening now.”
As Mali speaks, a growing number of traffic-jammed travelers are getting angry.
“There are very angry people shouting at me, threatening me and banging on doors. The police are on their way and I’m not sure how long this will take. I’m a bit overwhelmed.”
Behind Mali, a man approaches the window of his car. His camera captures him leaning back… his face distorted by fury.
“You’re screwing up everyone’s day, you stupid idiot. Get the crap out of the way. You’re a selfish screw-up.”
At the same time, across the harbor, Elizabeth Hartick is among the Blockade Australia protesters leaving Hyde Park and marching through various streets in Sydney’s CBD.
He is nowhere near the Sydney Harbor Bridge or the tunnel and manages to avoid arrest.
“I feel honored to be among them. I am happy to be here. I think we are all fighting for a good cause. I am very happy to be by their side,” she says.
Ten people were arrested that day and nine were charged. Elizabeth is not among them.
So it’s back out for the second day of protests in Sydney’s CBD.
Australia lockout protests in June 2022 (ABC News: Jake Lapham)
“You’ve been arrested”
The next day, I put her a little after 8am near the low sandstone wall that surrounds Hyde Park in Sydney’s CBD.
“We just want to keep pushing, pushing. We’re at the bottom line for people to start realizing what the reality is,” he says.
Elizabeth is on.
“You have to work hard to understand the enormity of the problem we’re facing. And very few people really do.
“They kind of say, Oh, yeah, we know about climate change. We’ve been hearing about it for years. Well, but what the hell happened?
“You know, we’re trying to do things with our plastic and recycling and stuff like that. It’s going to take a much bigger project…a much bigger project”
Members of Blockade Australia the day after the Harbor Bridge protest. (AAP: Flavio Brancaleone)
As we are talking, a detective approaches us.
“We’re from South Sydney Police. What’s your name, sorry?
“At this time, I’ll just let you know that you are… under arrest in regards to yesterday’s protest. You have been identified as present.”
Elizabeth is being arrested not for what she was doing right now, but because she was filmed the day before she marched with the protesters.
“It is alleged that while you were present and protesting, you were disturbing a major road, and that is now a new offense under the Crimes Act. And so for that offence, yesterday, you were arrested.”
She has been charged in the section relating to the Sydney Harbor Bridge and Tunnel.
In other words, she has been identified as someone who obstructed one of the “other major roads” that have joined a section dealing with the Sydney Harbor Bridge and Tunnel.
“We had to take measures”
To find out which roads the amendments to the Highways Act apply to, I’m going to see NSW Roads Minister Natalie Ward.
It turns out that when it comes to climate change protesters, she’s experienced them herself.
“One morning I sat there on the Spit Bridge in that traffic and I saw the family next to me in the car with three kids in their school uniforms trying to get to school, a stressed parent, people trying to get to work and go there. their everyday life,” he says.
“That really brought home the scale of the disruption. So we felt we had to take action.”
NSW Roads Minister Natalie Ward says protest is a “fundamental right of everyone in this country”. (AAP: Bianca De Marchi)
Ward says she is a passionate advocate for more action on climate change and supports the right to protest.
“That to me is a fundamental right of everyone in this country. But we also have to balance that with our obligations as a community to respect each other.”
Looking out the window of his office in Sydney’s Martin Place, there is a spectacular view. I ask the minister if she can indicate the roads where it is okay to walk without fear of being imprisoned for two years.
“There’s nothing illegal about walking the streets,” he says.
“You can’t walk on the roads unless you’ve organized to do so, unless you cross voluntarily at the lights when the light is green.
“I don’t want to be trite about it. This is important, sensible legislation that I think, you know, sets a real standard of behavior.”
Basically, the minister says you can walk on the roads as long as you act peacefully and don’t obstruct them.
He tells me that the list of roads you cannot obstruct is easy to find.
“We’ve put where … these roads are and aren’t.”
But the web address he provided me just links to a general Transport NSW page.
After further inquiries, his office provides me with a list of roads to which the amendments apply.
Almost 8,000 roads, highways and freeways are included in this list, along with around 700 “main roads” across NSW.
Basically, it means unauthorized protesters in NSW who block hundreds of major roads could be jailed for up to two years under a law designed to protect the Sydney Harbor Bridge and Tunnel.
Elizabeth…