Geoff Helisma |

Around 200 people attended the ‘School Strike 4 Climate Australia’ (SS4CA) protest in Grafton last Friday March 15.

According to the organisation’s website, “an estimated 150,000 students and adult supporters across Australia” participated in the action, “demanding … Australian politicians to tackle climate change”.

The Independent spoke to student organiser Amoretta Hartley, 16.

Answering critics who, for example, say the Australian Youth Climate Coalition (AYCC) is staffed by adults and that the students are being manipulated by the multitude of unions that have endorsed SS4CA, Ms Hartley said she was “happy with the union’s association” with the movement.

“It’s good that adults are helping us run it,” she said.

“If our parents and other adults didn’t help us organise, we wouldn’t get it done and have a big event like this.”

Adult organiser Shane Primrose said he “really didn’t have too much to do with this [protest], as the students really picked it up, ran with it [and] organised it for themselves”.

“I just helped them out with a few formalities like gaining council approvals,” he said.

“It was powerful to hear how the young people of our community feel about this issue and to hear how passionate they were about creating change.”

Mr Primrose said it was “great to have Indigenous community leaders present” – the ‘Seed Indigenous Youth Climate Network for climate justice is a “branch of AYCC led by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people, who are campaigning to protect country from climate change and fossil fuel extraction”, the AYCC website states.