Monique Ryan (Kooyong, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In this place I have repeatedly raised concerns regarding the potential environmental, climate and health impacts of the petrochemical processing facility planned for the Middle Arm region of Darwin Harbour and of the proposed fracking of the Beetaloo basin in the Northern Territory. More recently I've heard from numerous medical colleagues, fellow paediatricians, who share those concerns. These committed, courageous individuals have stepped away from the bedsides of sick children to advocate for all the children of the Territory and of Australia. They've asked their Chief Minister to meet with them about their concerns. She has not done so.

I present to the House a speech by Dr Louise Davidson, a paediatrician, given at the No New Gas rally in Darwin on 17 June 2023, to amplify her voice and to call to account the governments both of the Northern Territory and Australia. It reads thus:

There is no safe way to expand the fossil fuel industry in the midst of a climate crisis, and there is certainly no safe way to frack the Beetaloo Basin.

Almost 50 paediatricians working in the NT wrote a letter to the Chief Minister last month requesting a meeting to raise our concerns about the health impacts of fracking and the expansion of the gas industry. We were not granted a meeting.

Fracking the Beetaloo Basin and gas processing at the Middle Arm poses serious threats to the health and wellbeing of our children and our communities.

Fracking and gas processing risks contamination of air, soil and water by pollutants known to cause disease. These pose a risk to communities living and working near fracking operations or processing plants. This will include the population of Darwin should gas processing at Middle Arm proceed.

Fracking fuels climate change. The federal government has recognised climate change as a primary threat to the health and wellbeing of Australians and yet they are subsidising the Middle Arm, an enabler of Beetaloo fracking to the tune of $1.5 billion. Beetaloo basin fracking has the potential to increase Australia's total CO2 emissions by 20%.

The United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has warned that "we are on a fast track to climate disaster" and called for every country to end licensing and funding of new oil and gas projects. We must urgently transition away from fossil fuels including gas, to avert catastrophic climate change.

Why are the federal and NT governments expanding the fossil fuel industry?

The NT is on the frontline of the climate crisis and Darwin may become one of the first cities to become uninhabitable with the current rate of temperature rise. This may occur in our lifetime.

As paediatricians who care deeply about the health and welfare of children and their families, we are asking you to stand with us, and demand that the Territory and Federal Governments take our health seriously and stop selling out Territorians to prop up the fossil fuel industry. An industry with no future if humanity is to survive.

The health impact of fracking of the Beetaloo basin—the impact on the soil, the air and the water of the Northern Territory and on the climate of all Australians—would be catastrophic. It would release a 1.4 million tonne carbon bomb which will make it impossible for us to meet our emissions reduction targets. For that reason, the paediatricians and other health professionals of the Territory are mobilising. They're not being heard in Darwin, so they are coming to Canberra.

On 8 August 2023, together with Senator David Pocock, I look forward to hosting a day of climate action in this place. On that day, doctors, veterinarians, nurses, pharmacists and other healthcare professionals, representatives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and parents of Australian children who will be affected by that carbon bomb will come to this place, and they will seek to be heard. We owe them that much.