# Fracking the Outback: Australia's Plan to Go Big on Fracking and Plastic

An episode of [Drilled](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1439735906), 26 Nov 2021, 28 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/tracking.swap.fm/track/SxlTEPDY7xDg35RXkASs/pdrl.fm/3e5572/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/9a7ab5ee-ce11-48ff-a544-b3ec00ea9b1e/71437d40-fb3e-403f-acce-b3ec00f22b40/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=7f82f371-6316-4ea6-a108-b3ec00ea9b2d

As the rest of the world is beginning to realize that fracking comes with more downsides than upsides, Australia is readying itself for a fracking boom, eyeing basins on Indigenous land. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:03] Speaker 1: This year, I've been looking at what's behind the explosion
[0:06] Speaker 1: in disposable plastics, and as you have heard on earlier episodes,
[0:11] Speaker 1: nearly everywhere I looked, I found fracking.
[0:15] Speaker 2: And the plastics fracking connection has even reached Australia, where
[0:19] Speaker 2: the government called its strategy to respond to the pandemic
[0:22] Speaker 2: a gas fired recovery.
[0:24] Speaker 3: Oh hello, what's that? We have an Australian reporter.
[0:26] Speaker 4: Now, yes, you've been asking for it.
[0:31] Speaker 1: And now we're digging into the oil and gas industry
[0:34] Speaker 1: down Under. And when I say we, I mean you,
[0:37] Speaker 1: Lindall Rollins, Welcome to drills.
[0:40] Speaker 2: Thank you so much, Amy, I'm so excited to be here.
[0:45] Speaker 2: And so as I was saying, Australia's recovery from the
[0:49] Speaker 2: pandemic is fired by gas.
[0:51] Speaker 5: Fossil feed stock is all of your modern life. You
[0:54] Speaker 5: want to live a modern life, you need a fossil
[0:57] Speaker 5: feed stock. You can't get calmon any other way. If
[1:00] Speaker 5: you want a chemistry lesson, I'll help you at the back.
[1:02] Speaker 2: That's Andrew Laveres, the former CEO of Dow Chemicals, the
[1:07] Speaker 2: world's second biggest maker of plastic waste. Lavers was born
[1:11] Speaker 2: and raised in Darwin in the Northern Territory. He's gone
[1:14] Speaker 2: on to advise US presidents, including Obama and Trump. More recently,
[1:20] Speaker 2: Lavers was back home in Australia during the pandemic and
[1:23] Speaker 2: in his spare time, became a strategic advisor to Australian
[1:27] Speaker 2: Prime Minister Scott Morrison's National COVID nineteen Coordination Commission. Lavers
[1:33] Speaker 2: joined the Commission's Manufacturing Task Force and they quickly put
[1:37] Speaker 2: out a report titled creating a Competitive Domestic Gas Market.
[1:41] Speaker 1: That's what terrific At the moment, we have got blastering winds,
[1:44] Speaker 1: we are surrounded by.
[1:46] Speaker 6: A red sky, choking dust and slike.
[1:49] Speaker 7: That is just one of countless dramatic stories to come
[1:52] Speaker 7: out of this bush fire season which is raging on
[1:55] Speaker 7: with no relief in sight.
[1:57] Speaker 2: The report came out in May twenty twenty this month
[2:00] Speaker 2: that the devastating fires that had been burning in Australia
[2:03] Speaker 2: since June the previous year, eleven months in total, burnt out.
[2:08] Speaker 2: Here's Lavers on Australian National television earlier this year, echoing
[2:13] Speaker 2: some of the talking points Amy has been reporting on
[2:15] Speaker 2: this season around gas. Their feedstock. Laveris keeps talking about
[2:20] Speaker 2: is the byproduct from fracking that gets used to make plastics.
[2:23] Speaker 5: The National COVID Commission work we did was for manufacturing, okay.
[2:28] Speaker 5: It wasn't for electricity, It wasn't for doing the power
[2:31] Speaker 5: balance or any of that. The work we did was
[2:34] Speaker 5: totally based on using the carbon for manufacturing. That's the
[2:39] Speaker 5: work we did, Okay. I have no skin in the
[2:42] Speaker 5: game to keep in natural gas for power for anything
[2:46] Speaker 5: other than a transition. There's no reason to do that
[2:48] Speaker 5: because it is an emitter. It's not a bigger emitter
[2:51] Speaker 5: as call, but it's surely as an emitter. So you've
[2:54] Speaker 5: got to use it as a transition. That's it until
[2:57] Speaker 5: batteries become affordable and scatable can actually get more snowy hydros.
[3:01] Speaker 5: And why you need a gas pipeline is as much
[3:04] Speaker 5: to provide that transition for that, but more for industry,
[3:08] Speaker 5: which is why I'm trying to bring it back to
[3:11] Speaker 5: the feedstock troilware.
[3:14] Speaker 2: So when the former CEO of Dow Chemicals, who is
[3:17] Speaker 2: still on the board of some of the world's biggest
[3:19] Speaker 2: plastic manufacturers, talks about manufacturing, he's talking about plastics. I
[3:26] Speaker 2: looked into the National COVID nineteen coordination Commission report that
[3:29] Speaker 2: Laveras contributed to, and sure enough we get a picture
[3:32] Speaker 2: of the subtext of his appearance on Q and A,
[3:35] Speaker 2: one of the most popular shows from Australia's public broadcaster,
[3:39] Speaker 2: the ABC. On page twenty two, the report describes how
[3:43] Speaker 2: domestic demand for gas could grow further if a weldscale
[3:47] Speaker 2: ethylene complex were built Saudi equivalent created ten billion dollars
[3:51] Speaker 2: in revenues and twenty five thousand jobs. The Gas Fired
[3:55] Speaker 2: Recovery centers on fracking five key strategic gas basins in Australia,
[4:00] Speaker 2: and the first to be explored is the Beterloo basin
[4:03] Speaker 2: in the Northern Territory, near la Veris's hometown Darwin. Plans
[4:07] Speaker 2: to frack the Beterloo have attracted opposition from at least
[4:10] Speaker 2: six First Nations whose country and water will be affected.
[4:13] Speaker 8: You know, it's not like the big hole in the ground.
[4:15] Speaker 8: We can cover it all up. This could destroy country forever.
[4:21] Speaker 8: You can't go abuck and fits as aquifers, those underground
[4:26] Speaker 8: water systems. You can't fix the water once you've destroyed it.
[4:31] Speaker 2: Australia has only recognized native titles since the nineteen nineties,
[4:35] Speaker 2: but in practice the law gives little protection to sacred
[4:38] Speaker 2: sites and drinking water from fracking. More on this in
[4:41] Speaker 2: a minute. Under the Gas fired Recovery Plan, the federal
[4:45] Speaker 2: government has handed tens of millions of dollars worth of
[4:48] Speaker 2: grants to companies for exploration. In a press release, Minister
[4:52] Speaker 2: for Energy and Emissions Reduction Angus Taylor declared that be
[4:56] Speaker 2: Toloo Basin was a key element in the gas fired recovery.
[5:00] Speaker 2: Recent exploration has shown promising signs finding liquids rich gas
[5:05] Speaker 2: at a shallower depth than previously expected. Liquid's rich gas,
[5:10] Speaker 2: also known as wet gas, is particularly useful for plastics manufacturing,
[5:15] Speaker 2: which brings us back to Andrew Lavers's hometown, Darwin, where
[5:19] Speaker 2: Laverus was also an advisor to the Northern Territory Economic
[5:22] Speaker 2: Reconstruction Commission.
[5:24] Speaker 9: And the plan is to further industrialize Darwin Harbor to
[5:28] Speaker 9: create what they're calling value adds for gas. So that
[5:31] Speaker 9: would be the production of plastics and petroch chemicals in
[5:35] Speaker 9: Darwin Harbor, which we know to be a very toxic process.
[5:38] Speaker 2: So why exactly was Leveris on national television teaching us
[5:42] Speaker 2: about this word feedstock. Here's Kirsty Howie from the Environment
[5:46] Speaker 2: Center Northern Territory.
[5:48] Speaker 9: It's extremely important to resist the development of plants that
[5:51] Speaker 9: use gas as a feedstock plastics, because they would continue
[5:55] Speaker 9: to provide an impetus for further gas field developments even
[5:58] Speaker 9: if demand for gas for energy falls because of climate
[6:01] Speaker 9: change concerns.
[6:03] Speaker 2: We'll get back to plastics in a bit, but first
[6:06] Speaker 2: let's rewind back to twenty nineteen, when exploration first started
[6:11] Speaker 2: in the Beaterloo Basin on Gadangee Country.
[6:15] Speaker 8: Our creation story is about three mermaids that came in
[6:19] Speaker 8: from Nukah, and they traveled all around the old Country,
[6:23] Speaker 8: and they came to our place where they were really
[6:26] Speaker 8: sad for the ocean, and so they called up the ocean.
[6:30] Speaker 2: That's Ricky Dank, whose ancestors have lived on Goadangee Country,
[6:34] Speaker 2: about ten hours east of what is now called Darwin,
[6:37] Speaker 2: for thousands of years. Ricky says that the first her
[6:40] Speaker 2: family knew that a two kilometer deep well would be
[6:43] Speaker 2: drilled near one of her family's sacred sites was when
[6:45] Speaker 2: her grandmother saw trucks arriving. Water is sacred to Dank's
[6:50] Speaker 2: family because in their creation stories, it was mermaids who
[6:53] Speaker 2: brought the water inland.
[6:55] Speaker 8: Our creation story is about three mermaids that came in
[6:58] Speaker 8: from Nukah, and they traveled all around the country and
[7:02] Speaker 8: they came to our place where they were really sad
[7:05] Speaker 8: for the ocean, and so they called up the ocean.
[7:09] Speaker 2: Gadanjie country is mermaid's country where water is sacred and
[7:14] Speaker 2: women make the decisions as a matriarchal family. It's Ricky's
[7:18] Speaker 2: grandmothers who are the senior nimerinki old country.
[7:21] Speaker 7: It's Marabana, which means it's mermaid's country, women's country. So
[7:27] Speaker 7: women make the decisions for our country. So that's why
[7:31] Speaker 7: you'll see when I'm talking, it'll be me or my
[7:35] Speaker 7: granny's our senior nimrinki are grandmothers talking for country. So
[7:40] Speaker 7: it's women's country.
[7:41] Speaker 2: Ricky's grandmothers have seen a lot in their lifetimes. They
[7:46] Speaker 2: were only finally given native title to parts of their
[7:48] Speaker 2: land in the nineteen nineties when Australian courts overturned the
[7:53] Speaker 2: myth that Australia was uninhabited before colonizers arrived, known as Terrannalius.
[7:59] Speaker 8: It really ap say to me, because my grandmothers were
[8:03] Speaker 8: made to work with no pay. The were essentially slaves
[8:08] Speaker 8: by people coming onto their land and basically taking away
[8:12] Speaker 8: their rights and their freedom. And I feel like it's
[8:16] Speaker 8: kind of happening again now to them, that you know,
[8:20] Speaker 8: people again coming onto their country and stealing it after
[8:23] Speaker 8: it was rightfully handed back to us by the courts.
[8:30] Speaker 2: Ricky says her family were not properly consulted before fracking
[8:34] Speaker 2: started on their land. The Northern Land Council and Empire
[8:38] Speaker 2: Energy claim that consultations did take place, including during community
[8:42] Speaker 2: meetings where Ricky's grandmother, who Ricky says does not read
[8:46] Speaker 2: or speak English, was present. A moratorium unfracking in the
[8:50] Speaker 2: Northern Territory was only lifted after the government made commitments,
[8:54] Speaker 2: including that an independent body would be responsible for consultations.
[8:59] Speaker 2: At a Senate inquiry earlier this year, many concerns were
[9:02] Speaker 2: raised about the process, including the independence of research on
[9:06] Speaker 2: the effects of fracking on land and water in Australia,
[9:09] Speaker 2: much of which is funded by the gas industry itself.
[9:13] Speaker 2: Ricky's family has passed down the knowledge that the water
[9:16] Speaker 2: on their country is special from generation to generation, but
[9:20] Speaker 2: Australia's national science body, the CSIRO, is only just beginning
[9:25] Speaker 2: to catch up. Earlier this year, the Csiroro released new
[9:29] Speaker 2: research showing that the water in the aquifer is connected
[9:32] Speaker 2: across hundreds of kilometers after they discovered that tiny animals
[9:36] Speaker 2: living in the aquifer known as Staigafoona are closely related.
[9:40] Speaker 10: The scientific studies through the Northern Territory they're way behind.
[9:44] Speaker 10: They're basically flying through the dark.
[9:47] Speaker 2: Here's Nicholas Miliari, Fitzpatrick, A Yanyuwa and garrowa man and
[9:51] Speaker 2: a community organizer for seed Mob, speaking to a Senate
[9:54] Speaker 2: inquiry about the scientist's discovery.
[9:57] Speaker 10: They need to go and do all that scientific study
[9:59] Speaker 10: as it's been proven that the b lewis connected to
[10:02] Speaker 10: Matarankas through these little pawns in the water and they're
[10:06] Speaker 10: the same their brother and sister that they're not cousins,
[10:09] Speaker 10: they're the same. So they're very well connected in the
[10:12] Speaker 10: same water table. And that kind of scientific research needs
[10:16] Speaker 10: to be undertaken across the whole Northern Territory before anything
[10:20] Speaker 10: like this happens. I heard before someone was talking about, oh,
[10:25] Speaker 10: the water is not physically connected. We'll go and physically
[10:28] Speaker 10: prove that, because I'm pretty sure that no one's done
[10:31] Speaker 10: that work. You cannot just say that doesn't physically connected.
[10:37] Speaker 10: We know for thousands of years that a lot of
[10:39] Speaker 10: these water tables have been connected, and signs only catching
[10:42] Speaker 10: up now.
[10:43] Speaker 8: And you can actually see the water pulsating out of
[10:46] Speaker 8: the ground in certain places, and in those places you
[10:50] Speaker 8: can't actually see, you know where their bottom is because
[10:54] Speaker 8: of course it's connected to the aquifer.
[10:57] Speaker 2: For Ricky's family and thousands of First Nations people, the
[11:00] Speaker 2: water from the aquifer is literally life. Fracking poses risks
[11:04] Speaker 2: to their water supply as well as her family's cattle farm.
[11:08] Speaker 2: Yet despite the risks, the Australian government has been providing
[11:11] Speaker 2: funding for exploration in the region. In recent years, Australia
[11:16] Speaker 2: has been selling the idea that gas is a transition
[11:19] Speaker 2: fossil fuel. Although this hasn't stopped the government from approving
[11:23] Speaker 2: new coal mines, it has led Australia to becoming the
[11:26] Speaker 2: world's second biggest exporter of gas after Qatar.
[11:30] Speaker 11: So we've gone from being a relatively small gas exporter
[11:33] Speaker 11: to being the first or second largest lergy exporter in
[11:38] Speaker 11: the world. You know Katar is it's either rustle.
[11:41] Speaker 2: Then that's Stan Gosher from the Australasian Center for Corporate Responsibility.
[11:47] Speaker 2: They currently have a court case pending against one of
[11:50] Speaker 2: Australia's biggest gas companies, Santos, over it's claims that natural
[11:54] Speaker 2: gas is clean energy. Although the industry is leaning heavily
[11:59] Speaker 2: in Australia on suppose it get out of jail free
[12:01] Speaker 2: card of carbon capture and storage, even Angrea Laveres, as
[12:06] Speaker 2: we heard earlier, is aware that demand for gas as
[12:09] Speaker 2: an energy source is falling. One in four Australian households
[12:13] Speaker 2: now have rooftop solar and there are plans for a
[12:16] Speaker 2: solar farm in the Beterloo Basin that would export renewable
[12:20] Speaker 2: energy to Singapore. But this hasn't stopped both of Australia's
[12:24] Speaker 2: major political parties, the Liberal Party, which in Australia is
[12:28] Speaker 2: our right wing conservative party, and the Labor Party, which
[12:31] Speaker 2: is the major center left party, from backing a significant
[12:34] Speaker 2: increase in Australia's emissions by fracking five new basins, including
[12:39] Speaker 2: the be Toloo.
[12:40] Speaker 8: And we had been speaking to politicians about this and
[12:45] Speaker 8: warning them about this, but from our understanding, our feeling
[12:50] Speaker 8: that politicians are welcoming fracking their welcoming mining, there seems
[12:57] Speaker 8: to be a push towards this kind of industry in Australia,
[13:02] Speaker 8: even though everywhere else they're stopping it.
[13:06] Speaker 2: Among the companies planning to frack the Beterloo, one relatively
[13:09] Speaker 2: junior company known as Empire Energy has done surprisingly well,
[13:14] Speaker 2: attracting twenty six million dollars in government grants and tax subsidies.
[13:18] Speaker 2: Empire got its start in the heart of fracking Pennsylvania,
[13:23] Speaker 2: that has recently switched its strategy to focus on Australia's
[13:26] Speaker 2: Northern territory. The Environment Center Northern Territory is currently in
[13:31] Speaker 2: court challenging the Australian government for providing a twenty one
[13:34] Speaker 2: million dollar grant to a subsidiary of Empire Energy called
[13:37] Speaker 2: Imperial Oil and Gas. Yes, they really called their companies
[13:43] Speaker 2: Empire and Imperial.
[13:44] Speaker 9: And the likely emissions from cranking the Beloo Basin are exorbitant.
[13:50] Speaker 9: It was estimated that they could increase Australia's total emissions
[13:54] Speaker 9: by some eight percent, and subsequently it became apparent that
[13:59] Speaker 9: actually that might have been a vast underestimation, and indeed
[14:03] Speaker 9: its emissions could increase Australia's emissions by up to twenty
[14:08] Speaker 9: percent and really undermine any ability for Australia to meet
[14:13] Speaker 9: it's already poultry targets under the Paris Agreement.
[14:18] Speaker 2: So if fracking is so profitable, why do the companies
[14:21] Speaker 2: behind it in Australia need government subsidies to fund exploration.
[14:25] Speaker 2: Amy has been asking a lot of questions about the
[14:28] Speaker 2: supposed profits of fracking this season. Questions about the economic
[14:32] Speaker 2: benefits of the industry also came up during a Senate
[14:35] Speaker 2: inquiry into fracking in the Beaterloo Basin earlier this year.
[14:39] Speaker 2: Here's Senator Sarah Hunson Young of the Australian Greens questioning
[14:43] Speaker 2: the managing director of Empire Energy, Alex Underwood. Okay, so
[14:48] Speaker 2: you haven't actually pumped anything into the Australian economy yet.
[14:52] Speaker 6: No I would disagree with that, Senator. We are investing
[14:55] Speaker 6: heavily in the Australian economy right now. We carried out
[14:59] Speaker 6: a size program in same we drilled our first well
[15:02] Speaker 6: in twenty nineteen. We carried out practice simulation and flow
[15:06] Speaker 6: testing of that well earlier this year, and we will
[15:09] Speaker 6: continue to invest and that is putting capital into Australia's economy.
[15:16] Speaker 2: This is a two kilometer deep exploration mind that Ricky
[15:19] Speaker 2: Dank's grandmother discovered was going in when she saw trucks
[15:23] Speaker 2: turning up on their country. Can you tell us how
[15:25] Speaker 2: much tax Company Tax Empire and its subsidiaries have paid
[15:31] Speaker 2: in Australia in the recent.
[15:33] Speaker 6: Years, certainly, Well, we've never generated profits in Australia and
[15:38] Speaker 6: so there's no tax on which to pay because we've
[15:40] Speaker 6: only ever generated losses.
[15:43] Speaker 12: We obviously pay.
[15:44] Speaker 6: We obviously paid taxes associated with the payrolls and so
[15:48] Speaker 6: on and so forth for the people that we employ
[15:51] Speaker 6: in this country, but we have not ever generated a
[15:54] Speaker 6: profit that would have tax.
[15:56] Speaker 11: Paid on it.
[15:58] Speaker 4: So you haven't paid any company taxes yet. How many
[16:01] Speaker 4: people do you employ?
[16:03] Speaker 12: So in.
[16:06] Speaker 6: Terms of direct full time employees in Australia, it's approximately
[16:10] Speaker 6: around eight and then when we carry out work programs,
[16:16] Speaker 6: obviously they are not people directly employed by our company,
[16:19] Speaker 6: but that can grow to thirty to fifty people.
[16:22] Speaker 8: At a time. We also.
[16:26] Speaker 6: Provide a lot of work for Australian small businesses, including consultants.
[16:33] Speaker 6: That would be roughly double that eight people full time workforce.
[16:41] Speaker 2: So Mba Energy, which has received millions in government subsidies,
[16:46] Speaker 2: has yet to make a profit in Australia and employees
[16:49] Speaker 2: fifty or less people here. So where exactly will the
[16:53] Speaker 2: money and jobs that will make fracking the be to
[16:55] Speaker 2: looo basin profitabile come from. Here's Levers again on Q
[16:59] Speaker 2: and A. This time he's been questioned by another panelist
[17:02] Speaker 2: on the show, former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, about
[17:06] Speaker 2: a pretty questionable figure Levers had just mentioned.
[17:10] Speaker 3: Andrew, where are the eight hundred and fifty thousand jobs
[17:12] Speaker 3: that used gases.
[17:13] Speaker 5: Feedstock, fertilizers, plastics, chemicals explore eight hundred and working on
[17:19] Speaker 5: Australia making plastic?
[17:20] Speaker 8: Yes?
[17:21] Speaker 10: Is that right?
[17:21] Speaker 5: Not plastics all those industries.
[17:23] Speaker 1: I don't think that's true.
[17:24] Speaker 2: Q and A is a live program and often the
[17:26] Speaker 2: host will fact check claims during the show, but in
[17:29] Speaker 2: this case, the ABC took over a month to put
[17:32] Speaker 2: out a correction. It seems somehow the former CEO and
[17:36] Speaker 2: advisor to US presidents got confused and was referring to
[17:40] Speaker 2: the total number of people working in manufacturing in Australia and.
[17:44] Speaker 11: Behind this Manufacturing task force. You know, he claimed that
[17:47] Speaker 11: there was eight hundred and fifty thousand jobs that were
[17:50] Speaker 11: currently dependent on gases of feedstock and that's pretty much
[17:54] Speaker 11: the number in all manufacturing, which so we know that
[17:57] Speaker 11: it's only about ten percent of those jobs are actually
[17:59] Speaker 11: dependent on gas to manufacture products, whether it's fertilizers, plastics
[18:04] Speaker 11: and chemicals and so on, So the numbers were completely overstated.
[18:08] Speaker 2: The Northern Territory government released maps as parts of a
[18:11] Speaker 2: tender process that show hundreds of hectares designated for potential
[18:15] Speaker 2: use as ethylene and petrochemical plants.
[18:18] Speaker 9: On Darwin Harbor, there's also a place which has a
[18:21] Speaker 9: very high concentration of mangroves of incredible biodiversity values, is
[18:26] Speaker 9: used by local people for fishing and recreation, and of
[18:31] Speaker 9: course has been used for many thousands of years by.
[18:35] Speaker 13: The Larachia people.
[18:36] Speaker 9: And what's proposed in Middle Arm is when you look
[18:40] Speaker 9: at the map of what's proposed which was released as
[18:44] Speaker 9: part of a tender last year in the Northern Territory,
[18:48] Speaker 9: it shows Middle Arm pretty much obliterated and completely covered
[18:54] Speaker 9: by a range of industrial facilities to essentially facilitate gas production,
[19:03] Speaker 9: processing and these value adds for gas for plastics, petrochemicals, etc.
[19:09] Speaker 2: Even if the transition to renewable energy sees demand for
[19:12] Speaker 2: Beeterloo gas fall, as Amy has reported, the industry is
[19:16] Speaker 2: banking on demand for plastics increasing despite the environmental costs.
[19:21] Speaker 13: Clearly, plastics produce greenhouse gas emissions at every stage of
[19:26] Speaker 13: their life cycle, including most notably their decomposition at the
[19:30] Speaker 13: end of life in landfill across the world.
[19:33] Speaker 2: So far, the government has given about fifty million dollars
[19:37] Speaker 2: to companies exploring fracking in the Bee Toloo, but these
[19:40] Speaker 2: grants are relatively small in comparison to the billions of
[19:43] Speaker 2: dollars that both the federal and Northern Territory governments will
[19:46] Speaker 2: potentially have to spend on roads and pipelines in order
[19:49] Speaker 2: for private companies to pipe the gas to Darwin. Yet,
[19:52] Speaker 2: the Senate Inquiry also heard that, despite the significant costs
[19:56] Speaker 2: to the public, gas companies in Australia only sporadically pay
[20:00] Speaker 2: company taxes. Here's Nicholas Miliari Fitzpatrick again telling the Senate
[20:05] Speaker 2: Inquiry what fifty million dollars could mean to Indigenous communities.
[20:09] Speaker 10: Fixing roads, more houses. We need programs in reviving our
[20:16] Speaker 10: language and cultural practices, but also into the tourism and
[20:20] Speaker 10: building small businesses in our communities. There's so much potential
[20:24] Speaker 10: for building our economy in that area of tourism and
[20:28] Speaker 10: even cultural education. You know, there's a lot of Australians
[20:31] Speaker 10: out there that need cultural education. We split up too much,
[20:35] Speaker 10: but there there's plenty of other ways to use that
[20:38] Speaker 10: fifty million dollars. And as we are in poverty up
[20:41] Speaker 10: here in the territory, like we've we got a mine
[20:44] Speaker 10: next to our country there MacArthur River mine making billions
[20:47] Speaker 10: of dollars. And you don't look at Borrella. Borrel don't
[20:51] Speaker 10: look like a billion dollar place. It looks like it's
[20:54] Speaker 10: been forgotten for thirty years. And that's exactly what's happened.
[20:58] Speaker 10: Like there's no footpath anywhere around Borloa. The kids are
[21:03] Speaker 10: still walking on the road. There has been people by
[21:06] Speaker 10: getting run over on them roads. You know, we need
[21:10] Speaker 10: to be really thinking for the future for all of us.
[21:13] Speaker 10: Like these kind of industries, all it's doing is hurting
[21:17] Speaker 10: us even more. We got the most number in juvenile prison,
[21:21] Speaker 10: most suicides. We've been in pain ever since colonization. We're
[21:26] Speaker 10: trying to recover and get back to get on our feet.
[21:31] Speaker 10: And industries like this threatening our water. Well, we live
[21:34] Speaker 10: on water. Everything runs of water, trees, animals. With the
[21:39] Speaker 10: driest continent on earth. Put that fifty million dollars into
[21:44] Speaker 10: building a huge water security around the Inte.
[21:48] Speaker 2: For Ricky's family, the potential damage caused by frecking could
[21:52] Speaker 2: irreversibly destroy their sacred sites and cultural practices.
[21:56] Speaker 8: If this happens, we won't be able to continue being
[21:59] Speaker 8: gone out push, which means we won't be able to
[22:03] Speaker 8: continue our ceremony. We won't be able to, you know,
[22:06] Speaker 8: follow our song lines, which is so deeply connected to water.
[22:12] Speaker 8: So we're scared not just for our country but for
[22:15] Speaker 8: our culture that this will discontinue our sixty five thousand
[22:19] Speaker 8: years of being. So that's what fracking means to us.
[22:25] Speaker 8: It feels like you're trying to grasp water and it's
[22:29] Speaker 8: slipping through your hands. That's how it feels like when
[22:31] Speaker 8: you're trying to protect country. And this is why we
[22:34] Speaker 8: want to look after it, because we know how precious
[22:37] Speaker 8: it is.
[22:41] Speaker 4: Wow, Lindall, this is an incredible story, and it reminds
[22:45] Speaker 4: me so much of all the stories we've been hearing
[22:48] Speaker 4: about in communities where they're just kind of being ambushed
[22:53] Speaker 4: by fracking here in the US too. One of the
[22:56] Speaker 4: people that you spoke with said this too, But it
[22:58] Speaker 4: does just really strike me. Is I that while other
[23:00] Speaker 4: countries are starting to realize that they need to give
[23:05] Speaker 4: fracking the boot, Australia is doubling down on it.
[23:09] Speaker 2: Yeah, it's really not great. And the scientific research that
[23:13] Speaker 2: the government is supposed to be doing on the environmental
[23:16] Speaker 2: impacts of fracking, the Beterloo is being funded by the
[23:19] Speaker 2: gas industries, So I'm sure that's fine.
[23:23] Speaker 14: And so these five big tracking companies got together and
[23:27] Speaker 14: basically injected a whole lot of money into the CSIRO
[23:32] Speaker 14: and said we want.
[23:34] Speaker 12: To be the ones who do the research on what
[23:38] Speaker 12: the impacts of oil.
[23:40] Speaker 14: And gas extraction are in Australia.
[23:43] Speaker 2: That's Mark Og from the Australia Institute, who closely follows
[23:47] Speaker 2: the research being done at Australia's National Science Agency, the CSIRO,
[23:51] Speaker 2: by an initiative funded by five of our biggest fracking
[23:54] Speaker 2: companies called the Gas Industry Social and Environmental Research Alliance.
[23:59] Speaker 2: Or to Sarah for sure.
[24:01] Speaker 12: A study that Jazeera did on potential contamination of air,
[24:06] Speaker 12: soil and water by fracking. And what they did was
[24:10] Speaker 12: looked at six wells in Queensland and did some sampling
[24:16] Speaker 12: around those six wells. Now there's nineteen thousand wells in Queensland.
[24:21] Speaker 12: So they chose a very very small sample, and that
[24:26] Speaker 12: sample of wells was chosen by Origin Energy, the proponement
[24:30] Speaker 12: company right in Origin obviously have a huge vested interest
[24:34] Speaker 12: in not finding contamination of their wells.
[24:37] Speaker 2: Industry funding of research has been growing in Australia, where
[24:40] Speaker 2: universities were particularly badly hit by the pandemic. I looked
[24:45] Speaker 2: into this Advanced Manufacturing partnership of Obama's, which Laveris was
[24:50] Speaker 2: the co chair of back in twenty thirteen, and I
[24:53] Speaker 2: found that they put out this report that recommended eliminating
[24:57] Speaker 2: cups on the amount of corporate investment in university research programs.
[25:01] Speaker 2: And Laveras isn't afraid to get behind a bit of
[25:04] Speaker 2: industry funded research himself. At the beginning, I mentioned he
[25:08] Speaker 2: is the former CEO of Dow Chemicals, the world's second
[25:12] Speaker 2: biggest maker of plastic waste. Well, that figure actually came
[25:16] Speaker 2: from the Mindaroo Foundation, a philanthropic organization, and who was
[25:20] Speaker 2: a director on the board of Mindaroo Andrew Lavers.
[25:25] Speaker 4: Oh god, So at this point, is there anything that
[25:29] Speaker 4: Ricky Dank and her family can do? I know you
[25:32] Speaker 4: mentioned a suit, could that potentially put a stop.
[25:35] Speaker 2: To this Unfortunately, a lot of the problems are around
[25:38] Speaker 2: the colonial laws that have done so little to protect
[25:41] Speaker 2: the native title that Ricky's grandmothers went back. Ricky says
[25:45] Speaker 2: her family have struggle to find lawyers to represent them
[25:48] Speaker 2: in addressing how the consultations around native title take place. Currently,
[25:53] Speaker 2: both of Australia's major political parties support fracking the Beaterloo,
[25:57] Speaker 2: but the Senate inquiry heard from a lot of other
[25:59] Speaker 2: tradition irons with similar consents to Ricky's families, and we'll
[26:03] Speaker 2: hand down its findings next to you.
[26:06] Speaker 4: Ugh, that is it for this time.
[26:07] Speaker 1: Lyndall, definitely keep us posted on this and I appreciate
[26:11] Speaker 1: you bringing this story to us. We will be back
[26:15] Speaker 1: with more episodes on the gas industry in the months ahead,
[26:19] Speaker 1: so make sure you're subscribed so you won't miss it.
[26:23] Speaker 3: Thanks for listening and we'll see you next time. Drilled
[26:36] Speaker 3: is an original Critical Frequency production. Today's episode was reported
[26:40] Speaker 3: by Lyndall Rollins. Our producer is Juliana Bradley, mixing and
[26:45] Speaker 3: mastering by Peter Duff. Our First Amendment attorney is James
[26:49] Speaker 3: Wheaton of the First Amendment Project. Big thanks to our
[26:54] Speaker 3: latest Patreon supporters. Mary mc Morris Biell, Evelyn Carl Wilson,
[27:00] Speaker 3: Maureene dot com, and Sadine Keller. If you would like
[27:04] Speaker 3: to support our work, you can do that at Patreon
[27:07] Speaker 3: dot com. Slash Drilled, thanks for listening, and we'll see
[27:11] Speaker 3: you next time.

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