At the end of November 2025, a “protestival” for climate justice occurred in Newcastle, the world’s largest coal port. Newcastle ships around 150 million tonnes of coal produced in the Hunter annually, or around 15 per cent of the world’s total output. At the protest, thousands of people listened to music, camped, debated politics, and —above all — took action. Several coal ships were turned back, with blockades of kayaks in the port. Over 140 people were arrested.

These convergences happen annually, with many hundreds of arrests over the years. It is the kind of action we need to prevent environmental catastrophe. But we also need more worker action, and a strong eco-socialist movement to stop climate change at its point of production. We desperately need alliances between workers and the environmentalist movement, and an awareness that workers are not adversaries. We need worker militancy, rank-and-file organisation and strikes.

The history of the union-led Green Bans in protecting the environment is well-known. What is less known is the incredible history of worker radicalism in the Hunter Valley region itself. Workers and communists took on governments, police, banks and bosses, unionised whole industries from scratch, and formed militant Labour Defence Armies of hundreds. While these are not specifically environmentalist actions, there is much to take inspiration from in this history of defiance and rebellion. It is a story of class struggle, collective action and combativeness. Here I want to share the story of what I dub the “Red Hunter”: an incredible, epic period of militancy in the region that took place from the late 1920s to the end of the 1930s — from the coalfield towns in the hinterland to Newcastle itself.

The Northern Districts Lockout 

When the price of Australian coal on the world market was high in 1929, bosses decided to reduce prices by slashing wages and conditions for miners in the Hunter. Workers refused to accept these terms, and mine owners began what came to be known as the Northern Districts Lockout. Thousands of workers began picketing mines, and engine drivers went out in solidarity. The most dramatic confrontation would occur on the Rothbury coalfields on December 16,1929. 5000 miners converged on Rothbury, and were confronted by armed police. In the chaos, several rounds of shots were fired, resulting in the killing of twenty-nine-year-old miner Norman Brown. Eyewitnesses reported that he was running away from police violence. The recent historian of the events, Phoebe Kelloway, dubs the death a “state-sanctioned killing” and has captured some of the drama and intensity of the day:

Police attacked the picketers, mainly with batons, and miners fought back, including with sticks and stones. Police then opened fire, this forced the crowd to retreat, but it did not disperse. Picketers faced police bullets twice more that morning. In the second instance, some attempted to rip up the mine’s railway and police shot at them as they chased them away. The final occasion was during a clash when a car arrived at the colliery entrance: miners mistakenly believed the hated NSW Minister of Mines, Reginald Weaver, was a passenger. In that third instance, police gunfire killed a 29 year old miner Norman Brown. It also injured dozens of other miners, six of whom were hospitalised including two critically wounded. The police did not escape uninjured: one lost a tooth and another needed six stitches to his scalp, but none suffered bullet wounds because they held all the weapons.

After the killing there was an enormous rally of some ten thousand people in Cessnock: the largest in the small town’s history.

After Rothbury, hundreds of extra police were deployed to exert the state’s authority on the coalfields. In the coalfield towns, police kept a 24-hour watch, using lorries to patrol relentlessly. Meetings of three or more were banned. One miner’s wife observed that if more than two people assembled, “police would just belt them where they stood”. Historians have described the police as behaving like “an occupying army”. Communists were arrested and beaten. Communist organiser Joe Shelley was thrown in Maitland gaol for six months for a speech allegedly inciting violence. Inside, Shelley wrote a column for the communist newspaper Workers Weekly, and solidarity efforts bought him a dentist’s treatment and even a cake.

When there’s oppression, there’s resistance. Communists Jack Kavanagh and Ted Docker were able to avoid the meeting ban and spoke at Cessnock. Black bans were placed on Hunter hotels and shops that served police. A strike of hotel workers in solidarity with the miners began. Thistles were placed in the bed of one policeman, and clothes pegs were served instead of chops. Militant women pressured shopkeepers to join the campaign. Labour Defence Armies of hundreds were formed, reportedly chanting at one meeting “guns, guns, we want guns”. In the aftermath, police were banned from a local rugby league competition and Weston boycotted a game against Maitland when the latter named a scab in their line-up. A Constable Kenning was personally declared black, and kids refused to play with his children. Ultimately, the lockout led to a defeat for the workers, but the union was able to regroup quickly and communists assumed leadership of the Miners Federation by the mid-1930s.

Communist women played leadership roles too. Irene Orr, for instance, would found the Miners Federation Women’s Auxiliaries in the Hunter, which would spread across Australia and become famous for supporting the men in disputes. In a victorious 1938 strike, these radical women assumed a diversionary role in Lambton, tricking the police into chasing them while some miners sprinted in and dropped vital supplies of food to men in the pit. Communists would play central roles in the union for decades, their influence only beginning to wane with the Cold War and the defeat of the major 1949 strike.

UWM, Great Depression and Tighes Hill Eviction Riot

Across NSW, unemployment reached over 30 per cent as a result of the Great Depression. Historian RW Thompson described Newcastle as “a dingy town, a town of bitter and out of work men”. Dozens of branches of the Unemployed Workers Movement (UWM) were formed across the state, from Dubbo to Paddington. The small coalfield town of Kurri Kurri reportedly had four sections of the UWM entirely composed of women. Sometimes these workers were able to pressure police, owners and real estate agents into backing off from evictions peacefully. Kurri Kurri saw one particularly incredible example of community resistance. Noreen Hewitt, co-ordinator of the mining women’s auxiliary, recalled how:

The worst unemployment was on the coalfields and most miners in Kurri were out of work and their houses, little two or three room weatherboard affairs were mortgaged to the bank. When they couldn’t make the repayments the bank decided to sell them up. They tried a deputation to the local bank manager but it was no good, and an auction of the one most in arrears was announced. The auction was held in Kurri, no one would bid, so there was no sale and the Kurri people thought they’d won. Then they heard the bank had sold the house in Sydney.

The news came one afternoon. By next morning the entire house had disappeared. The miners had taken it to pieces and carted it away in the night. That was the last house in Kurri that the bank tried to sell.

On other occasions the UWM’s efforts resulted in intense street fighting and violence. Bankstown and Newtown saw brutal clashes between police, working class residents and activists barricaded inside homes. The most prominent Newcastle incident took place in Clara Street, Tighes Hill, and was dubbed the Tighes Hill Eviction Riot. Hundreds assembled to protect the home, before police violently attacked the barricaded house. Accounts tell how a Jewish lad of twenty called Don, the secretary of the Young Communist League, was especially badly bashed by police. Over thirty were arrested in the fracas.

Yet the state’s attempts to put the rioters on trial were a disaster. After an initial attempt to try them in Newcastle couldn’t reach a verdict, the government moved the case to the seemingly conservative farming settlement of Singleton. Yet the communists and their fellow travellers were able to form friendships and alliances in Singleton, working with the community to help them with their own struggles. Most of the arrestees got off their charges. The remaining cases were abandoned by the government. While the UWM weren’t able to directly win their clashes with the police, the resistance helped pressure governments and police into backing off from the evictions.

The Kurri Kurri Pipe Band was another source of hope during the Depression. They led marches of miners and toured the state to raise funds for worker and communist causes. They played in Sydney’s Domain to fundraise for the International Class War Prisoners’ Aid, and toured Lithgow as well. During Wollongong’s Depression-era “Free Speech Fights”, where the local council attempted to ban political events, they played a significant role. They defied the ban, performed, and several members were arrested. Comrade Hitchen from the band refused the bible in court, declaring “I have no religion, therefore the bible will not inspire me to tell the truth”. He went on to make a speech decrying the capitalist system. Eventually the Wollongong ban was defeated.

Newcastle Metalworkers and Silksworth

A major effort was put into organising the Newcastle metalworks factories. Unionisation went from as low as 25 per cent to nearly 100 per cent by the end of the decade. Communists talked to workers during and after their shifts and convinced them to join the union. Right-wing thugs linked to the conservative union hierarchy frequently attacked leftist unionists, so the communists organised a crew of boxers for self-defence. Paddy McFarlane, a boxing champion from Maitland who sold Workers Weekly on the train, was able to recruit his friends to defend the union organising drive. By the end of the decade, they had won double time on Sundays and public holidays, as well as some paid leave.

1937 saw a largely forgotten act of profound anti-racist solidarity by communist activists in the Hunter. When a Chinese crewman on the SS Silksworth in port in Newcastle was badly beaten by a Japanese higher-up, the crew went on strike. Against an unsympathetic Australian government, communists were forced to hide the crew in safe houses in secret. After concealing them in Cessnock, they were taken to Sydney via back roads. After publicising the case, the crew were eventually repatriated safely to China. This predates by a year the much more famous Dalfram Dispute in the Illawarra, where workers refused to load pig iron destined to supply Japan’s military machine during the assault on China. It shows that Dalfram was not a mere one-off in the history of the Australian labour movement.

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There are many more stories of radicalism in the Hunter that can be accommodated in a short article. One favourite is an encounter with the far-right. Upon discovering fascist New Guard members meeting in Newcastle, some communists managed to capture several snakes and set them loose onto the fascist meeting. Lastly, the Ashtonfield Feint of 1930 saw a fake march designed to deceive police. Unionists announced a march on Rothbury, but instead went to the unguarded scab mine of Ashtonfield. Upon arrival they chased the scabs, stripped them of their clothes, stole their money — which they donated to the union — and destroyed their bicycles. The manager immediately fired the scabs and replaced them with union labour. One picketer commented: “we have fixed Ashtonfield for all time. The scabs will not come back here”. These were both examples of creative, daring, clever organising.

These stories are not just an eclectic collection of interesting incidents and drama. Rather, they show the potential for what is possible in the region and hint at the possibilities for an eco-socialist movement today. With the workers, we can win.

Image: Procession from the funeral of Norman Brown