Well, Shit’s Fucked, Right?

OPPOSITE-EDITORIAL / ISSUE № 5

The systems of power have failed us: why young people are turning to direct action to make themselves heard.

At the crack of dawn on a wet west coast morning last april, 22-year-old engineering student Tommy Thomson ascended a pylon at Bathurst Resources’ Stockton Mine and climbed into an empty coal cart suspended on an aerial ropeway. Along with five others, he occupied and shut down the coal transportation infrastructure. Together, the activists prevented coal from leaving the mine for more than 60 hours, sleeping in the coal cart under a tarpaulin, before descending.

“It was all very frantic and crazy and then after we'd got up there, there was a moment the sun rose and we could see our surroundings in the bush around the cableway for the first time. I suddenly felt much more of a sense of calm, like, oh, I'm here, I'm going to be here for the next few days. And then over the next few days, as the media started rolling in, I got incredibly emotional and overjoyed and overwhelmed. The news was going all around the country, everyone heard what had happened.” 

The Stockton protest, involving activists from groups Climate Liberation Aotearoa (CLA) and 350 Aotearoa, opposed Bathurst’s plans to turn the nearby Denniston Plateau into an open-cast coal mine. It’s currently a unique sandstone pavement ecosystem with endangered species found nowhere else on Earth. The company intends to use the Stockton cableway to transport coal from their proposed Denniston mine, too. 

The occupation of the coal cableway is an example of direct action. This is a form of activism in which participants use their physical or economic power to directly achieve objectives, rather than relying on lobbying politicians or authorities to make change. 

Direct action speaks a language that people in power can understand, says MSc ecology student and peace activist Joseph Bray. “The idea of direct action is about taking yourself as a person and physically disrupting these systems and these mechanisms of oppression. When we target the systems and the transportation of goods, the transportation of finance, and the transportation of materials, we actually have a significant impact on companies' bottom line.”  

Bray isn’t just talk. In March last year, they and another Peace Action Ōtautahi activist, climbed onto the roof of munitions company NIOA’s Rolleston office, shutting down operations for the day. The company owns Barrett Firearms, a manufacturer of sniper rifles for the Israeli Defence Force. “So essentially what we have right next to Ōtautahi is a company that directly profits off the genocide in Gaza. And just to see the way in which two people could deliver such a heavy blow to the finance and the money of this company, how much weapons and munitions we could block just with two of us, really has refuelled this idea that direct action is the way that we get our message across. When we stop the flow of weapons to the location where they're going to be used, that is lifesaving.” 

Direct action doesn't shy away from breaking the norms of protest, says fellow peace activist and UC student August*. “It makes change through a denial of legitimacy to the systems of power which have failed us. Instead of relying on the government, police, or courts to listen and understand, we make decisions for ourselves.” There’s a lack of trust in decision-making bodies to address the challenges we face, leading many to search for alternative tactics.  

CLA activist and psychotherapist Michael Apáthy shares this sentiment. "I believe this government we have now is one of the most extreme governments that we've ever had. It's a government that I genuinely believe will completely sacrifice the climate, will completely sacrifice a good environment on the altar of growth.” The current government’s Fast-track Approvals Act allows extractive projects to apply for approval by small panels, bypassing environmental protections and community consultation. “This is happening at a time of escalating climate and ecological breakdown. So, the stakes are very high. And the government has intentionally taken away other options of influencing these outcomes.” 

Bathurst Resources’ planned Denniston mine expansion is among the projects approved to apply under the fast-track legislation. “It's like a cancer consuming its host,” says Apáthy. “The coal mining on the West Coast needs to expand into the Denniston Plateau or it will pretty much go extinct.” 

Direct action isn’t just a modern phenomenon, emphasises Apáthy. “It's easy to dismiss direct action in the present, but usually it's looking back that the contribution of direct action is fully respected and understood how massively significant that is.” Campaigns including the American Civil Rights Movement, the fight for women’s suffrage and the gay rights movement all utilised direct action to achieve their aims. “Just the fact that we have any workers' rights, the fact that we have weekends, it's down to labour unions who use direct action through things like strikes.” 

Bray acknowledges the strong history of Indigenous resistance and direct action against colonial oppression in many countries including Aotearoa. “That's certainly not something I can ignore when I carry out my forms of direct action. That's something that I learn from and that I take with me to the situations that I find myself in.”

Direct action works. And that’s why groups such as CLA are using this strategy to fight extractive projects worldwide. Thomson’s coal cart action is just one part of a multifaceted direct action campaign opposing Bathurst’s mining plans. In August, Stockton Mine saw a repeat of the coal cableway occupation by activists Rach and Tāmati. They made a coal cart their home for 23 days, costing the mining company more than $500,000. While they were in the air on the Coast, ANZ bank, which provides banking services to Bathurst, was targeted by nationwide actions. 19-year-old fine arts student Ida Scott was among those who shut down ANZ’s Cashel Street branch for a day with a human blockade at the entrance. “You definitely don't feel powerless anymore. It is possible to have your say and stop things that you don't want happening through people power and direct action. It is totally possible and it's been done before and we'll do it again.” 

Common throughout direct action campaigns are the feelings of empowerment and confidence experienced by participants. Apáthy finds direct action to be the most empowering method of making change, as it doesn’t rely on people in positions of power to make the right decisions. Engaging in the political system can feel dead and bureaucratic, he says. “The way it reduces these causes that we're rightly passionate about and involve us so personally. I think it’s a form of madness that the climate gets treated as almost like an accounting problem. When we're talking about life getting to flourish or getting extinguished, this is not an accounting problem.” Direct action is a way to bypass this disconnect by dealing with problems at their source.

Apáthy highlights the role of community in the direct action movement. “Climate change is such a massive problem that as an individual, we’re so powerless.” Messaging which focuses on changing our consumption patterns can individualise and isolate us, he says. “We're indoctrinated to just see ourselves as consumers and think of ourselves as individual … in isolation, hopelessness and despair is almost inevitable. So, we need a group, we need a community, we need a movement.” 

We have to fight this together, Apáthy argues. “It needs to be communities of action, of actually doing something.” This improves not only effectiveness but also the community itself, “when people are in communities which are taking some sort of action, people are so much better off, it’s so good for our mental health, the tangible benefits to being in community.” 

Tommy Thomson first got involved in direct action when tramping friends invited him to blockade an oil and gas industry conference in 2024. The conference was moved online, a “positive and rewarding” success for the young activist. “It was funny when Shane Jones called us a group of barnacles,” said Thomson, who enjoys combining direct action with his passion for tramping and the outdoors. “Whether that’s keeping a campsite from being flooded or scouting out a coal mine, exploring a cave, that’s felt really cool and special, using those skills to do something good.”  

What keeps Thomson going? “Well, shit’s fucked, right? Things are bad. This is one of the only tools we’ve got to try and fight back. What else am I going to do with this life?” 

Ida Scott predicts that direct action as a form of protest will continue to grow. “It’s becoming more and more of a normalised thing. And especially with the way everything is going, I feel like for a lot of people, direct action is the only way to make themselves heard.” 

“There absolutely has been a shift in the way that young people especially are viewing direct action.” says Bray. Young people are fed up with the government’s lack of action on the climate crisis, and seeing solutions being blocked off in the interest of money spurs them into action. “We don't have a legal and you know, more ‘acceptable’ way to voice our concerns and our genuine fear at things like the climate crisis that isn’t direct action.” They’re excited to see where the student movement goes with direct action in 2026. “I have a feeling it's going to be quite a significant increase from the last few years, especially with the disenfranchisement of young people and students with this government.” 

For every person out there making the headlines from a coal cart, there are countless others working behind the scenes to keep the movement afloat. "There are lots of people who are doing equally important work,” says Apáthy, “the people doing the social media, the people doing the organising, cooking the kai, writing the articles.” There is, as Apáthy insists, a place for almost everyone willing to give it a go, “there's no substitute for dipping a toe and seeing what that feels like.” 

People are often held back from taking action by their fears, says Apáthy. “We can end up missing out on so much.” Over time, comfort zones expand and fear fades, allowing for increasingly more meaningful action. “I've stood up in a room full of people by myself and yelled things out at the Prime Minister, and it’s like, ok that was scary at the time, but now I've done that, I'm less frightened of speaking out, and it’s been awesome to see all sorts of ways my confidence has grown.”

In the face of despair and lassitude, direct action helps us keep fighting. As August eloquently puts it: “There are points where my mind becomes overloaded by the sheer volume of hate and cruelty in the world around me, and I experience a feeling of absolute impotence against these things. Sometimes though, there's a wonderful feeling of determination you get, where you realise you're doing something better than what was expected for your life, and instead of working just to stay alive, I'm working to stay alive to do something worth living for. That's the spirit of change that, when we come together, can crush any oppressor.”

*name has been changed on request.