Protesters Occupy ANZ Offices as Bank Rules Out Funding Beetaloo Gas Pipeline

Melbourne, Australia – Climate group Rising Tide said its five-month protest campaign forced ANZ to rule out funding the North to East Australia gas pipeline, after activists staged more than 70 actions at the bank's branches and offices.

Footage released by Rising Tide shows protesters sitting with placards inside an ANZ office in Brisbane, a marching band playing in the building and police leading demonstrators to a police van. Other clips, recorded during actions in September and October, show a "Don't fund NEA Pipeline" banner in Melbourne and a protester interrupting the bank's chief executive at a business summit in Sydney.

In its 2026 annual report, released on Monday, November 9, ANZ said it would not directly finance "new midstream infrastructure dedicated solely to new upstream oil and gas projects (such as new transmission pipelines)", according to Rising Tide.

The group said ANZ was the last of Australia's four major banks to rule out the project, which it says would open the Beetaloo Basin to large-scale fracking. Fourteen protesters were arrested during the campaign, all in Brisbane, it said.

"We know that people power can stop destructive fracking in the Beetaloo Basin," said Rising Tide spokesperson Nick Willis.