TOXIC STATE - Australia's double standards

Some of the chemical elements in these herbicides and pesticides used in Australia are chemical components similar to high-grade military poisons, e.g. DDT, 2-4-5-T & mustard gas, which is used to kill weevils in grain silos and rabbits in warrens. These toxins leach into the soil and our river systems and when rain comes they drain into our aquifers.

Ghillar, Michael Anderson, 20 March 2018

I notice with great interest foreign minister, Julie Bishop’s recent support of the English demands to go after Russia over the alleged misuse of military-grade nerve agent to poison a known double agent on English soil.

Clearly, the Australian government is so brazen in seeking to attack other countries over toxin allegations, when Australia is, in fact, encouraging economic development in country Australia, where high grade fertilisers and pesticides are being used on farms.

Some of the chemical elements in these herbicides and pesticides are chemical components similar to high-grade military poisons, e.g. DDT, 2-4-5-T & mustard gas, which is used to kill weevils in grain silos and rabbits in warrens. These toxins leach into the soil and our river systems and when rain comes they drain into our aquifers.

An example outside the Murray Darling Basin is the use of Agent Orange as a defoliant to control mosquitos in the Kimberley, WA and in Far North Queensland, in the last thirty years and residents are suffering severe health consequences.

If we look within the Murray Darling Basin catchment areas of Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia scientists can measure the impact of toxins by the number of deaths and medical requirements of the population of the Murray Darling Basin, in particular, the Aboriginal population. The death rate alone is criminal and these death rates are caused by the toxic dusts, the polluted waters, and contaminated soil, not to mention the fact that people work with these chemicals without being fully informed of the potential life-threatening consequences, and often without proper protection.

It is hypocritical for the Australian government to make any type of reference to chemical warfare and its impacts on populations, when they only need to look in their own backyards for evidence of the effect of such devastation. In the case of the Murray Darling Basin these known poisons are wreaking havoc. It is time the residents in the Murray Darling Basin take a closer look at the environmental and human catastrophe that is currently being experienced from these toxins, which do not discriminate in the environment.

It is interesting to note that State governments and the Murray Darling Basin Authority are now not only focusing on water quantity, but also have now turned their attention to water quality as well.

In recent negotiations with Santos trying to promote their coal-seam gas project, the Gomeroi People were told that contamination from coal-seam gas in the Pilliga region will be minute, compared with the already existing high level of naturally occurring uranium in the soil in the Pilliga scrub, together with heavy metals leached from the rock.

Santos argued that the farmers of the past, who cleared land around the edge of the Pilliga forest, seeking to grow grain and other crops, have actually disturbed the soil so much that the uranium and other heavy metals naturally occurring in the soil have been activated to become lethal when high rainfall occurs on the area. This highly toxic concoction is washed into our creeks, which flow into our river system, in particular, the Namoi, which then flows down to towns such as Walgett, Brewarrina and Bourke. What is very disturbing for our people in these townships is that they are catching fish, especially the yellowbelly, and these fish are covered with little sores all over their bodies and our people no longer eat them.

Given these personal experiences and firsthand scientific knowledge, I believe more notice must be taken of the diseases First Nations Peoples have in order to determine their causes.

In concluding this statement of concern, I have been advised by certain scientists to buy and use a Geiger counter when shopping in major food stores and to measure the high radiation emanating from the food shelves in stores such as Coles and Woolworths. People may be surprised at how much radiation is emitting from the foods sold for human consumption.

So let’s not have Australia talk about overseas poisonings, let’s look at what is being emitted in the backyards of Australia.

Top: Gladstone industrial area where Orica manufactures 20,000 tonnes of sodium cyanide a year, nearly all for the gold mining industry (August 2004)

We must be alert to what is really going on with these big mines around our Country, in particular, with their extraction methods such as cyanide in the extraction of gold. For example, Evolution mining brings in 6090 tonnes of sodium cyanide every year to the Lake Cowal gold mine in the heart of the Murray Darling Basin. The tailings of cyanide by-products are used to build the walls of the tailings dams, and are then blown into the air by strong winds and carried into the neighbouring agricultural food bowl and beyond. The mine exposes ancient rocks to oxygen in the air, which begins an acid leaching process releasing arsenic, which is cumulative toxin in the food chain. How is the population protected from these toxic tailings dams and waste rock arsenic and other toxins?

Another unused mine that is damaging the environment is the former uranium mine of Mary Kathleen in Queensland, where Geiger counters measure extremely high levels of radiation in the waste dumps of exposed rock. Kangaroos still drink the waters in this area and Aboriginal people continue to eat kangaroo in the area, not to mention the shooters who shoot kangaroos in this area and the roo meat is sold to the public, in particular, Russia.

It is interesting to note Russia’s recent response to Julie Bishop’s critical intervention against Russia’s use of nerve agents, Russia then made a counter claim by alleging America smuggled nerve agents into Syria in the recent UN humanitarian aid convoy.

Australia would be best to hold its colonial opinions to itself, until it can work out its own place in the world instead of being the grownup child of the Crown of England and associating itself with another bastard child of England, called America. Same mother, different fathers.

An excerpt of ABC Four Corners extensive footage not all used in Four Corners Report. Association Professor Caroline Gaus, ENTOX University of Queensland