Grant is a coal miner. He’s been arrested for protesting against coal exports

Grant Howard has been a coal miner since he left school in Wollongong 44 years ago. At the weekend he was arrested at a protest, trying to hasten the end of his industry.

Howard was one of 170 people arrested for paddling out to blockade the Port of Newcastle, the largest coal port in the world, in what NSW Police Minister Yasmin Catley described as a “dangerous and volatile situation”.

The protest, organised by Rising Tide, demanded an end to new coal and gas approvals and the imposition of a 78 per cent tax on coal and gas exports to fund the energy transition.

Coal miner Grant Howard at Horseshoe Beach, the site of the Rising Tide protest.Credit: Dean Sewell

At 61, Howard is still a coal miner. He has worked in the Illawarra, the Hunter Valley, and now in the Bowen Basin in Queensland.

He is also deeply concerned about climate change and wants coal miners to be at the heart of the energy transition. Otherwise, he fears, mines will close suddenly and workers will be left in the lurch.

Howard is particularly worried about exports of thermal coal, rather than coking coal used for steelmaking. Burning thermal coal for energy is one of the major sources of greenhouse emissions, and ending it is essential to global plans to reach net zero by 2050.

Climate protesters in kayaks attempt to block access to the Port of Newcastle.Credit: Getty Images

“Thermal coal is the first market that’s going to be affected,” Howard said. “That change is already under way, and there’s nothing we can do as mine workers to stop that happening, so we need to be better informed and be a part of the conversation.”

Howard recalls learning about the greenhouse effect in year 11 science at high school in Wollongong in 1979, and mining companies trying to reduce emissions in the 1980s.

He assumed the issue was in hand until 2018, when he learnt that carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere were already 420 parts per million, not the 300 parts per million he had been taught at school. A year later, he saw rainforest burn in the black summer bushfires of 2019-20.

“For 30 or 40 years, I was living with the idea that the government was managing this issue, so when I found out that wasn’t the case, I was profoundly shocked,” Howard said.

“I was just an ordinary Australian and I had some level of confidence that our politicians would generally do the right thing.”

Howard started sharing his anxiety with other coal miners on the bus ride to and from work and found they listened patiently, with none of the ridicule and derision he has seen on social media.

He then joined a local conservation group and started on the path that led him to the Rising Tide protest at the weekend. On Sunday morning, he was part of a large group of people who paddled out into the shipping lane in kayaks, canoes and other watercraft and prevented a coal ship from entering the port.

The protesters were rounded up by police and taken ashore for processing, and Howard said: “They were good about it – they were amicable”. He has “mixed feelings” about being arrested for the first time in his life, but described the disruption as “simply symbolic” as it had no impact on people going about their day-to-day life.

Police arrest protesters in Newcastle.

Howard said the community was disappointed that the Albanese government had not taken stronger action on climate change, and suggested it should start by banning new thermal coal mines. He added that the Coalition’s plan for nuclear energy was a “red herring” and would lead to more inaction.

Charged with disrupting a major facility, Howard will face court in January. The Minns government recently increased the maximum penalty to two years’ imprisonment and a $22,000 fine.

A NSW Police statement said 156 adults and 14 young people were arrested at the weekend, and charged either with disrupting a major facility or failing to comply with a direction by an authorised officer.

The police statement said there were “serious safety risks” and dozens of people needed to be retrieved from the water during arrests or assisted to return to shore. One police officer suffered a fractured ankle, but NSW Police could not provide further information about how that occurred.

Catley said she strongly condemned the “reckless behaviour of those who think it is acceptable to waste critical policing resources and endanger officers with self-serving stunts”.

On the Channel 7 Sunrise program on Monday morning, Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek said people had the right to protest “peacefully and safely”, but otherwise they needed to face the consequences.

Plibersek said she had approved 10 times more renewable energy projects than coal mines and had stopped a coal mine because of the potential impact on the Great Barrier Reef.

Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce told Sunrise the protesters “want Australia to be poor”.

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