NSW businesses are seeking compensation for financial losses after Viking cancelled two calls to the Australian port of Newcastle due to safety concerns over an anti-coal protest.
The Viking Orion will now spend an extra day docked at the port of Sydney, with the region losing about €440,000 from the cancellations. Stewart Ford shared that the region collectively lost about 750,000 Australian dollars due to the cancellations.
ABC News Australia shared that the company decided not to go ahead with the call “out of an abundance of caution.”
Climate activist group Rising Tide plans to close the port’s navigational channel during the People’s Blockade starting on 29 November 2025. The blockade targets coal ships, leading Viking to cancel a visit by the Viking Orion on 1 December 2025.
Trevor Richards shared “When they are overseas tourists, they generate huge amounts of income into small tourism businesses in the Lower Hunter. 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.”
A spokesperson for the activist group shared “Rising Tide has made constant, public assurances that we will never block non-coal shipping, particularly not cruise liners. It is simply not in our politics or our values, or our interests or our strategy to disrupt a cruise liner.”
