A law student has been slapped with a $1,200 fine and given a two-year community corrections order for turning off a machine at the world's biggest coal port in Newcastle - and all it took was a 'stop' button.
In a video posted to the Blockade Australia Facebook page, she says: 'My name is Kirsten Hoffman and I'm a 23-year-old law student and I just stopped a coal machine by pressing one of the buttons'.
Hoffman, who is studying law at the Australian National University, says she's 'part of a team of Extinction Rebels camping and causing pacifist disruption for as long as it takes to reach zero carbon emissions'.
Kirsten Hoffman, 23, was fined $1,200 and sentenced to a two-year community corrections order
In her video from the coal port in Newcastle, she says 'I'm also running around putting some Blockade Australia stickers on equipment'.
'And back there Jacinta, a mum, is locked onto this machinery to stop this coal port contributing to the climate and ecological emergency that we're currently all in.'
Hoffman adds that 'the only way to stop this is to actually be out here doing the work and turning machines off'.
In the video, which was initially livestreamed, she says there are security guards around but they had not yet approached her.
'For now I can kind of just sit tight and plan the next machine that I'm going to turn off.'
Looking around, she calls the port 'a bleak landscape, like the moon'. 'I can't believe we chop down trees to make things like this, just giant piles of black.'
After she asks people to join her in direct action, she pays tribute to the local Indigenous population.
'I must acknowledge that we are on Worimi and Awabakal country today. The first nations, who had their land stolen and have been fighting in resistance ever since.'
Hoffman then says that the 'pacifist disruption' practised by her and her compatriots is a continuation of what the local Aboriginal people have been doing for hundreds of years.
