Hi-vis offers no protection from extreme activism

Lucas Dow says ‘hi-vis workers are being taken for granted and they know it’. Picture: Caitlan Charles

What has become apparent in recent times is that if you wear hi-vis, the iconic uniform of thousands of coal, gas, mining and heavy industry workers, you cannot rely upon governments to protect you from the illegal actions of anti-fossil fuel protesters.

This is the message train drivers, port workers, diesel fitters, truck drivers and many others have heard loud and clear as they have had to deal with the scourge of anti-fossil fuel activists who interfere with their equipment, invade their work sites and intimidate and harass them.

My business recently shared a video on social media of these activists intimidating and abusing our workers at our Bravus Mining and Resources Carmichael mine in Central Queensland. The video really hit a nerve with people in the mining industry. This confronting video has been watched more than one million times.

These anti-fossil fuel activists have been camping on our mine site without our consent for about three months and the Queensland government refuses to move them on, despite their presence being a breach of Queensland mining legislation. These protesters have been driving dangerously, harassing and intimidating our workers, stopping traffic trying to enter and exit the mine site and have even flown a helicopter on to the mine without our permission to deliver supplies to their camp.

This stunt was only one of a long list the anti-fossil fuel activists have pulled lately. They have stopped coal trains in the Hunter Valley and Central Queensland by locking on to railway tracks and wagons. They have halted port operations in Newcastle, Central and North Queensland by chaining themselves to live conveyors and to the booms of equipment high above the ground. And they have blocked roads and site access in Western Australia.

The protests take a toll on workers. They hold genuine fears and concerns about the near misses when their train could have run a protester over or when they could have reactivated a conveyor belt with an activist locked on to it.

The protesters are a small group of extremists. They are often multiple offenders, a tiny group of people who get nothing but slaps on the wrist from the courts, where the maximum penalties available are rarely, if ever, applied. They are back within weeks engaging in the same illegal activity and putting their own lives at risk. The same people turn up time and time again. One NSW woman arrested after locking on to a train last week has been arrested four times in the past few years for performing dangerous protests and was most recently let off with a one-month suspended sentence and a $500 fine – less than you get in Queensland for busking without a permit.

I have no problem with people expressing opinions. That’s what helps keep our democracy strong. But staging protests that put lives in danger or that prevent others going about their legal business is selfish and is not in the interests of our broader society. As citizens, we expect governments and institutions to apply the law evenly to support and protect everyone’s rights. We don’t expect them to turn a blind eye to the behaviour of some, just because they are noisier and have bigger audiences on social media than others.

All sides of politics and government are quick to claim they support the resources industry but when the rubber hits the road where are they? The men and women who work our ports, railways and mines are left without the support of their governments when they yet again discover trespassers in their workplace. They have to dig deep, keep cool and make the site safe so no one is injured.

Hi-vis workers are the people who quietly go about driving the trucks and trains, fixing the engines and loading the ships that help earn Queensland, NSW and WA the royalties from iron ore, coal and gas exports that pay for such things as roads, schools, hospitals, teachers and nurses. They are the ones who produce the gas and coal to fuel Australia’s domestic energy grid. The irony that the keyboard warriors who heap abuse on them using social media sit in airconditioned rooms powered by the energy they create is not lost on them. Hi-vis workers are being taken for granted and they know it.

You won’t find many of these hi-vis people sharing their views on social media, but you will find them voting in places such as Singleton, Newcastle, Yeppoon, Muswellbrook, Agnes Waters, Mackay, Bowen, Clermont, Moranbah, Townsville, Ayr, Bundaberg, Gladstone, Calliope, Biloela and Rockhampton.

Lucas Dow is the chief executive and country head of Adani Australia.