TRANSCRIPT
Doctors have converged on Canberra for a landmark protest against fossil fuel projects that health experts say risk turning Darwin and the Beetaloo Basin into hotspots for disease.
Hundreds of health professionals have joined paediatrician Louise Woodward in the nation's capital who is pleading with politicians to acknowledge what's at stake if they don't stop fracking in the basin.
She says if the government does not ditch its plans to spend 1.5 billion taxpayer dollars on the Middle Arm gas processing and petrochemicals plant in Darwin Harbour, it will have significant health impacts on locals.
"So, I'm here in Canberra with a delegation of paediatricians and parents as well as health professionals from around the country to deliver a letter to Prime Minister Albanese which has actually been signed by almost 2300 health professionals requesting that he look into Middle Arm and Beetaloo and stop the federal subsidy to Middle Arm due to the health impacts on children and vulnerable people."
The letter pointed to a number of scientific studies showing children living near fracking operations in the United States have had significantly higher rates of defects and disease.
It asks Anthony Albanese to intervene, prevent the fracking and stop funding the controversial industrial hub, which is set to process gas from the basin and make petrochemicals.
Dr Kate Wylie is an Adelaide-based G-P who also serves as the Executive Director for Doctors for the Environment Australia.
She says the latest scientific data points to very clear health risks for anyone living close to the Middle Arm processing facilities.
"When it comes to the sort of direct health harms that we know that gas processing facilities and fracking will cause we're talking things like air pollution, which is associated with pregnancy complications like miscarriage, low birth weight babies, we're talking increased risk of birth defects like neural tube defects, heart defects, we're talking childhood cancer. We know that people within a five kilometre radius of a petrochemical facility like they're gonna have with Middle Arm had an up to 30 per cent higher risk of developing leukaemia."
The delegation of doctors was joined in Canberra by independent M-P and paediatric neurologist Monique Ryan as well as independent senator David Pocock.
Mr Pocock says the Middle Arm investment shows the government's climate policy has not significantly improved on the former Morrison government's strategy.
"We have a government that got elected on the promise of climate action and we've seen them do the bare minimum. The Albanese government has picked up Scott Morrison's gas led recovery and run with it. As a country that is seeing the impacts of climate change that hears the scientists imploring us to act, we've got a future gas strategy. We've got $1.5 billion of taxpayer money going to middle arm, a project that will turn Darwin into Australia's very own cancer alley."
The Northern Territory Labor government as well as the federal government have been keen to frame the Middle Arm facility as what they call a "sustainable development precinct" - removing mentions of petrochemical processing from their website last November.
They argue that the processing of petrochemicals is just one facet of the plant's potential.
They say it's a short-term economic solution to allow the region to ultimately transfer to full renewable and green energy alternatives in the future.
Last week, Northern Territory Chief Minister Natasha Fyles told the National Press Club that the Middle Arm facility was critical to the territory's economic development and she believes much of the criticism is hypocritical.
"This is world class and delivering another source of jobs as we make the energy transition. Whether it's natural gas in the near future or critical minerals, solar, hydrogen and other industries in the longer term. It's bad enough to get lectured from people living on Sydney's northern beaches, or in Melbourne's eastern suburbs, about what jobs Territorians can or can't have. But bagging out a development that supports zero and lower emissions from a place overwhelmingly powered by coal and oil? The hypocrisy is breathtaking."
Dr Woodward, who lives and works in the Territory, says it's been a couple of months now since she wrote to the Chief Minister, pleading with her to reconsider fracking in the Beetaloo region.
About 90 per cent of the territory's paediatricians signed the letter to Chief Minister Fyles as well as the second one directed at the prime minister.
Dr Woodward says Ms Fyles' criticism of opponents from Southern states ignores the broad outcry from local communities concerned for their own health.
"I would totally disagree. The community in Darwin and in regional areas has consistently rejected fracking. The community is very concerned about fracking and gas processing. And we actually contacted politician federally because our politicians in the N-T are not listening."
Dr Wylie who has joined Dr Woodward at parliament says, as a doctor, she feels it's her duty to sound the alarm including the project's effects on the climate.
"When I see a project like this that I know is going to directly harm the local people, I think it's incumbent upon me to try and do something about it. Also, there's the wider health risk, which is climate change. Now, climate change is the greatest health issue facing humanity. And I can't sit by and watch that happen without doing my best. I have a duty of care to look out for the health of the Australian people. And I really would like our government to exercise its duty of care to look out for the Australian people too. And unfortunately, I don't think they're doing that because they're allowing these projects to go ahead.”
