Doctors have converged on Canberra for a landmark protest against fossil fuel projects that risk turning Darwin and the Beetaloo Basin into hotspots for disease.
Hundreds of health professionals have locked behind paediatrician Louise Woodward who desperately wishes she was on the job in the Northern Territory, caring for sick kids.
Instead, she’s in the nation’s capital pleading with politicians to acknowledge what’s at stake if they don’t stop fracking in the basin and axe plans to spend $1.5 billion taxpayer dollars on a gas processing and petrochemicals plant in Darwin Harbour.
“The health of territory kids is really being put at risk. I wish I didn’t have to be here telling everyone about it,” Dr. Woodward said.
“I wish the government would consider the health impacts before they approve these projects, and then I could still be working at the hospital, where I belong.”
It’s been a hectic couple of months since she wrote to NT Chief Minister Natasha Fyles, pleading with her to reconsider approving fracking in the Beetaloo Basin.
The letter pointed to scientific studies showing children living near fracking operations in the U.S. have higher rates of low birth weight, birth defects, childhood cancers and respiratory conditions.
About 90 percent of the territory’s paediatricians have since signed the missive and a second one to the prime minister.
It asks Anthony Albanese to intervene, prevent the fracking and ditch plans to give a mountain of taxpayer cash to the Middle Arm industrial hub in Darwin, which will process gas from the basin and make petrochemicals.
The PM’s letter carries the signatures of 2,300 health professionals and has the backing of Australia’s medical colleges representing 100,000 doctors nationwide.
Dr. Woodward said international studies had documented the impacts of petrochemical factories, including a 30 percent increased risk of leukaemia, which predominantly affects children, for populations within 5km.
“The population centres in Darwin are only 3km from this plant. And fracking the Beetaloo basin is going to increase Australia’s emissions by 20 percent—just one project.
“What are we doing with governments supporting these projects?”
Darwin woman Kat McNamara is pregnant with her third child and among the territory parents who’ve headed south to be part of Tuesday’s action.
“I want my children to have a long, safe, healthy future in the NT, but with the future heat projections, I am worried they will not,” she said.
Dr Kate Wylie from Doctors for the Environment said it seemed a form of “madness” for governments to be throwing petrol on the climate change fire.
“As a doctor, I have a duty of care to look out for my patients’ health. The politicians have a duty of care to look out for the best interests of the people of Australia, and they are not doing that when they expand coal and gas.”
Ms. Fyles said there were plenty of safeguards to protect human and environmental health, and a large amount of work had been done that would help assess risks and monitor and mitigate impacts on the Beetaloo region.
The chief minister, who last week railed against “teals and trolls” spreading nonsense about Middle Arm, said the project was a renewable energy hub that would help decarbonise the economy.
Dr. Woodward has called a baseline population assessment in the Beetaloo area “extremely low quality” and next to useless when it comes to tracking future human health impacts.
AAP has sought comment from the federal government, which has denied taxpayer funding for Middle Arm as a fossil fuel subsidy.
