{"id":263584,"date":"2025-11-05T05:19:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-05T05:19:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/263584\/"},"modified":"2025-11-05T05:19:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-05T05:19:09","slug":"viking-cruises-cancels-second-newcastle-visit-amid-rising-tide-protest-safety-fears","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/263584\/","title":{"rendered":"Viking Cruises cancels second Newcastle visit amid Rising Tide protest safety fears"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Hunter Valley businessman is calling on climate activist group Rising Tide to compensate his business after a second cruise ship cancelled its visit to Newcastle due to safety concerns over an anti-coal protest in the harbour later this month.<\/p>\n

The Viking Orion cruise liner, which was due to arrive on December 1, will not dock in the harbour because of the “possibility that the planned activities at the Port of Newcastle could impact scheduled shore excursion programs and guests’ experience”.<\/p>\n

Rising Tide has planned its annual People’s Blockade event<\/a> to run over five days in November, but has specified the blockade would only occur on November 29 and 30 and that it would only target coal ships.<\/p>\n

Despite this, Viking Cruises said, “out of an abundance of caution”, it decided to cancel its visit.<\/p>\n

Close to 1,000 guests will spend an extra day exploring Sydney instead.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Hundreds of activists paddled out on Newcastle Harbour in 2024. (ABC Newcastle: Bridget Murphy)<\/p>\n

It is the second Viking cruise ship to cancel due to the protest and Newcastle Tourism Industry Group’s cruise coordinator, Stewart Ford, says dozens of Lower Hunter businesses will be affected.<\/p>\n

“It’s a loss of about $750,000 collectively to the regional area,” he said.<\/p>\n

“It’s a loss of tourism events \u2014 I know of two tour operators who have lost complete bookings for those dates.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Morpeth business owner Trevor Richards says he will meet with Rising Tide to discuss compensation next week. (Supplied: Trevor Richards)<\/p>\n

Trevor Richards owns multiple businesses in Morpeth, including an antique store and a gallery that caters to tourists from cruise ships.<\/p>\n

He told ABC Newcastle Breakfast’s Paul Culliver<\/a> his businesses will suffer from the cancellations.<\/p>\n

“When they are overseas tourists, they generate huge amounts of income into small tourism businesses in the Lower Hunter,” he said.<\/p>\n

Mr Richards said he had written to Rising Tide asking for compensation.<\/p>\n

“I am seeking compensation for the demonstrable financial losses my business will suffer as a direct result of the cancelled cruise ship visits linked to your planned blockade,” the letter read.<\/p>\n

“I would appreciate your prompt response regarding how Rising Tide intends to address this matter and provide restitution to affected businesses.”<\/p>\n

Rising Tide responds<\/p>\n

Rising Tide spokesperson Zack Schofield said the group had no intention to impact tourism in the Hunter region.<\/p>\n

“We are protesting the coal industry,” Mr Schofield said.<\/p>\n

“Rising Tide has made constant, public assurances that we will never block non-coal shipping, particularly not cruise liners.<\/p>\n

“It is simply not in our politics or our values, or our interests or our strategy to disrupt a cruise liner.”<\/p>\n

Mr Schofield said he visited Viking Cruises’ office in Sydney to assure the company the protest would not affect its ships.<\/p>\n

“We have done everything in our power to advocate for their visit,” he said.<\/p>\n

\"Three<\/p>\n

Rising Tide protesters paddled out onto the water in kayaks ahead of a large coal ship heading to the terminal in 2024. (ABC Newcastle: Lillian Watkins)<\/p>\n

Port of Newcastle corporate affairs executive manager Lucas Coleman said despite Rising Tide’s assurances, it could not guarantee the protest would not affect the cruise’s scheduled visit.<\/p>\n

“There couldn’t be any assurances given that there wouldn’t be activity [in the shipping channel] at any given time,” he said.<\/p>\n

“This has been well and truly demonstrated on the 30th of October, when they decided to enter the shipping channel and vandalised a vessel.”<\/p>\n

Mr Coleman’s comments were in reference to an incident in which activists from Rising Tide spray-painted the words “tax me” on the side of a coal ship.<\/p>\n

170 arrested during anti-coal protest<\/a><\/p>\n

Police say they have arrested 170 protesters in Newcastle Harbour for allegedly blocking the shipping channel during an anti-fossil fuel protest.<\/p>\n

He said the port would not engage with Rising Tide.<\/p>\n

“Despite the assurances they are giving this year, they have given assurances in previous years that they have not followed through with,” Mr Coleman said.<\/p>\n

“That is our reason for not continuing these ongoing and fruitless conversation that they never seem to follow through on their end.”<\/p>\n

Mr Coleman said the Viking Orion sought assurances of safe passage from the Port Authority of NSW and cancelled the visit after those assurances could not be given.<\/p>\n

Mr Schofield said Rising Tide believed the Port Authority should have advocated harder for Viking Cruises not to cancel the visit.<\/p>\n

“As the Port Authority of NSW is the agency which has turned around these ships with no reference to Rising Tide’s aims or timetable, we can only suggest they would be a more appropriate target for legal action,” he said.<\/p>\n

“And they would actually have the money to pay.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Hunter Valley businessman is calling on climate activist group Rising Tide to compensate his business after a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":263585,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[64,63,99,154519,154516,154522,154517,51861,154518,154521,154520],"class_list":["post-263584","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business","tag-climate-activist","tag-cruise-cancelled-due-to-rising-tide-protest","tag-newcastle-climate-protest","tag-peoples-blockade","tag-port-of-newcastle","tag-rising-tide","tag-viking-cruises","tag-viking-orion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263584","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=263584"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263584\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/263585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=263584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=263584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=263584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}