Rising Tide or Rising Performance: Why the Newcastle Harbour Blockade Feels More Like a Stunt Than a Step Toward Change
Every year, hundreds of people pile onto kayaks and paddleboards to block Newcastle Harbour—the world’s largest coal-exporting port—in a gesture of climate resistance. Rising Tide calls it a stand against fossil fuels, a bold act of civil disobedience, a message to government and industry that business-as-usual is no longer acceptable.
And on the surface, it looks powerful. A sea of colourful kayaks. Homemade signs. A festival atmosphere. Big-name speakers. The optics are beautiful. The hashtags do their job. It trends. It circulates. It “raises awareness.”
But at what point does resistance become ritual? When does activism quietly drift into performance? And is a protest still a protest when every authority involved—the police, the council, the state government, the port itself—has approved it, planned for it, contained it, and effectively blessed the spectacle?
This is where Rising Tide’s blockade begins to resemble something disturbingly familiar: the rise of performative activism, where the action becomes more about the act than the outcome. Where the energy goes into visibility, not strategy. Where the spectacle becomes the story, while the structures that created the problem stay comfortably intact.
When Activism Becomes a Controlled Activity
Let’s be honest: the Newcastle blockade is not a disruption. It’s an event—a tightly managed, police-chaperoned, safely packaged pseudo-protest that coal companies prepare for like a minor inconvenience. Tugboats wait. Ships sit offshore for a few more hours. Nothing breaks. Nothing bends. Nothing changes.
It’s no more threatening than a mild storm delay—an occupational hazard of maritime logistics.
The coal still moves.
The profits still land.
The next day is business as usual.
And the activists?
They go home feeling righteous for paddling for a day in a harbour they never visit the other 364 days of the year.
This is the paradox: a blockade that disrupts nothing except the illusion that disruption occurred.
Awareness Isn’t the Issue. It Hasn’t Been for Years.
Rising Tide insists the goal is to “raise awareness” about the climate crisis. But awareness isn’t the bottleneck anymore. We’re drowning in awareness. Awareness is the most abundant, most useless commodity of the social media age.
People know about coal.
People know about emissions.
People know about the reef, the droughts, the floods, the fires.
People know the planet is dying. They know who’s doing the killing.
But unless someone is willing to pressure the systems that enable it—policy, economics, legislation, corporate loopholes, the revolving door between government and industry—awareness alone is just noise. It’s the illusion of action masquerading as action.
It’s the Ned Brockmann problem.
When Good Causes Become Performances
What Ned Brockmann did for homelessness—turning a complex, deeply rooted social crisis into a feel-good personal brand narrative—Rising Tide risks doing for climate activism.
Brockmann meant well. Many activists do. But intention doesn’t absolve impact. Running for the homeless without engaging with poverty, addiction, over-policing, mental illness, or housing policy is not activism—it’s a marathon with a charity sticker on top.
Likewise, blocking coal ships for a few hours without targeting:
political decision-making
fossil fuel subsidies
energy transition policy
industry accountability
economic alternatives for workers
the structural incentives that keep coal alive
… is activism only in aesthetic.
It looks rebellious.
It feels righteous.
It creates beautiful photos.
But it leaves the roots untouched.
The Strange Comfort of Controlled Resistance
Older generations of activists would look at the Newcastle blockade and shake their heads. Civil disobedience used to be uncomfortable. Raw. Unpredictable. A genuine threat to power.
Now?
We protest inside velvet ropes.
We resist inside the lines drawn for us.
We perform dissent with police escorts.
How did resistance become a curated experience?
Part of the problem is capitalism’s genius for swallowing anything—including rebellion. The moment activism becomes predictable, it becomes manageable. And once it’s manageable, it becomes marketable. And once it’s marketable, it loses its teeth.
The state has figured out how to turn protest into programming.
The Kayak Paradox: A One-Day Relationship With Nature
Here’s the bit most environmental groups won’t touch:
You cannot protect what you do not love.
And you cannot love what you do not know.
One day a year in a kayak does not create a relationship with a river or a harbour.
I paddle the Hunter River constantly. I rarely—if ever—see anyone out there. Not kayakers. Not paddlers. Not surfers. Not environmentalists.
Yet on blockade day, hundreds arrive—many for the novelty of paddling in a place they otherwise ignore.
It’s nature as backdrop.
Nature as prop.
Nature as theatre set for the political performance.
If people were out there every day—learning the tides, watching the birdlife, noticing the pollution, feeling the currents—then maybe something would shift. Daily love leads to daily protection. Daily connection leads to daily action.
One day of kayaking is not a movement.
It’s an outing.
What Could Rising Tide Do Instead?
I’m not criticising because I’m anti-activist.
I’m criticising because I am one.
I’ve paddled the river source-to-sea.
I’ve seen its beauty and its fragility.
I know what real engagement looks like.
And I know what’s possible when creativity, courage, and strategy actually align.
So here’s the uncomfortable question Rising Tide needs to ask:
Are we doing this because it works—
or because it looks like it works?
Because there are more potent paths:
1. Use those relationships with police, council, and government as leverage.
If they’re willing to negotiate your blockade, they’re willing to negotiate policy conversations. They’re willing to collaborate. Start there.
2. Target the actual decision-makers, not the tugboats.
Coal ships don’t set climate policy. Premiers do. Ministers do. Industry lobbyists do. Regulators do.
3. Shift resources from spectacle to strategy.
Imagine if the same energy went into:
policy pressure
legal challenges
shareholder activism
worker transition programs
creative campaigns
direct negotiation
local renewable innovation
That’s activism with teeth.
4. Build real, sustained relationships with the harbour and river.
Not photo-op relationships. Actual relationships. Daily ones. Embodied ones. Ones that turn waterways from abstract symbols into loved places people will fight for all year.
5. Reclaim creativity.
Activism should be imaginative. Unexpected. Difficult to absorb and commodify. This blockade? It’s too easy to digest.
Conclusion: The Day After Matters More Than the Day Of
Rising Tide’s ambitions are good. The people involved care deeply. But caring deeply doesn’t guarantee effectiveness. Awareness is not enough. Symbolism is not enough. Performance is not enough.
If the coal moves the next day—and the next, and the next—what were we actually doing out there?
A blockade should block.
A movement should move.
A tide should rise.
Right now, Rising Tide is creating waves—beautiful, photogenic waves—but waves that break harmlessly on the shoreline of a system that has no reason to fear them.
If we’re serious about change, we don’t need more kayaks.
We need more courage.
More creativity.
More strategy.
More uncomfortable pressure.
More true connection with place.
And far fewer performances.
Evan Sutter.