A climate activist and museum curator, convicted for trespass after protesting a coal train in 2021, delivered his $50 court levy inside a bag of coal.

Bruce Mahalski, 61, was one of six protesters who were arrested following a 2021 protest that blocked a coal train in Dunedin and unintentionally caused the cancellation of an excursion train.

All five protesters were charged and convicted of trespass at the Dunedin District Court last year, three with the added conviction of obstruction, and sentenced to 40 to 70 hours of community work.

The judge declined to discharge them without conviction.

Mahalski said the delivery of his $50 court fee packaged with coal was a protest against the wording of the “offender levy” which states: “Offenders pay to help address the harm that their crimes cause”.

“I do not regard myself as morally culpable for ‘causing harm’, as the very reason for committing this trespass was not to commit harm but to try to prevent a person’s actual physical death.”

Climate activist Bruce Mahalski paid his court levy within a bag of coal as a form of protest. Photo / Ben Tomsett

“Here you go, you love coal so much - let’s keep getting your hands dirty.”

The coal was not bought but found at the bottom of a house and given to him by a friend, along with the plastic bag, Mahalski said.

Mahalski, also the curator of the Dunedin Museum of Natural History, has taken part in multiple protests against New Zealand’s continued reliance on coal, accusing the Government of failing to address the climate emergency it declared 2020.

“The Government declared it in 2020, and we started doing these protests, trying to back up the Government with the climate emergency by addressing the fact that their carrier KiwiRail was still carrying huge amounts of coal.”

The 2021 protest attempted to stop KiwiRail train transporting 500 tonnes of coal from Bathurst Resources’ Nightcaps mine to Fonterra’s Clandeboye milk-processing plant, inadvertently causing the cancellation of Dunedin Railways’ Victorian excursion to Oamaru.

Mahalski also pointed to the Government’s partial ownership of Genesis Energy, which continues to burn coal at its Huntly power station.

“The Government is knee-deep in coal,” he said.

He pointed to global disasters such as fires in Los Angeles, flooding in South Dunedin, and extreme weather events in Spain and Pakistan as evidence of a worsening crisis.

Despite the Government’s climate emergency declaration, Mahalski argued that little has been done to address emissions.

“New Zealand is number 41 out of 63 countries in the International Climate Performance Index,” he said.

“If we don’t halve our emissions by 2030, we’ll have to buy around $20 to $30 billion worth of overseas carbon credits.”

He called for significant changes in policy, including ending coal transportation on KiwiRail and phasing out its use at Genesis Energy’s Huntly station.

After paying the fee, Mahalski said he would bury the coal under a tree on a friend’s property.

“As far as I’m concerned, my hands are clean. The Government’s hands, however, are just dirty.”

“If I could I would block another coal train, but they run them in the middle of the night now.”

Ben Tomsett is a multimedia journalist for the New Zealand Herald, based in Dunedin.