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Speaker 1: This year, I've been looking at what's behind the explosion

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Speaker 1: in disposable plastics, and as you have heard on earlier episodes,

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Speaker 1: nearly everywhere I looked, I found fracking.

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Speaker 2: And the plastics fracking connection has even reached Australia, where

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Speaker 2: the government called its strategy to respond to the pandemic

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Speaker 2: a gas fired recovery.

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Speaker 3: Oh hello, what's that? We have an Australian reporter.

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Speaker 4: Now, yes, you've been asking for it.

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Speaker 1: And now we're digging into the oil and gas industry

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Speaker 1: down Under. And when I say we, I mean you,

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Speaker 1: Lindall Rollins, Welcome to drills.

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Speaker 2: Thank you so much, Amy, I'm so excited to be here.

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Speaker 2: And so as I was saying, Australia's recovery from the

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Speaker 2: pandemic is fired by gas.

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Speaker 5: Fossil feed stock is all of your modern life. You

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Speaker 5: want to live a modern life, you need a fossil

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Speaker 5: feed stock. You can't get calmon any other way. If

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Speaker 5: you want a chemistry lesson, I'll help you at the back.

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Speaker 2: That's Andrew Laveres, the former CEO of Dow Chemicals, the

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Speaker 2: world's second biggest maker of plastic waste. Lavers was born

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Speaker 2: and raised in Darwin in the Northern Territory. He's gone

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Speaker 2: on to advise US presidents, including Obama and Trump. More recently,

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Speaker 2: Lavers was back home in Australia during the pandemic and

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Speaker 2: in his spare time, became a strategic advisor to Australian

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Speaker 2: Prime Minister Scott Morrison's National COVID nineteen Coordination Commission. Lavers

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Speaker 2: joined the Commission's Manufacturing Task Force and they quickly put

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Speaker 2: out a report titled creating a Competitive Domestic Gas Market.

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Speaker 1: That's what terrific At the moment, we have got blastering winds,

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Speaker 1: we are surrounded by.

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Speaker 6: A red sky, choking dust and slike.

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Speaker 7: That is just one of countless dramatic stories to come

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Speaker 7: out of this bush fire season which is raging on

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Speaker 7: with no relief in sight.

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Speaker 2: The report came out in May twenty twenty this month

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Speaker 2: that the devastating fires that had been burning in Australia

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Speaker 2: since June the previous year, eleven months in total, burnt out.

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Speaker 2: Here's Lavers on Australian National television earlier this year, echoing

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Speaker 2: some of the talking points Amy has been reporting on

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Speaker 2: this season around gas. Their feedstock. Laveris keeps talking about

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Speaker 2: is the byproduct from fracking that gets used to make plastics.

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Speaker 5: The National COVID Commission work we did was for manufacturing, okay.

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Speaker 5: It wasn't for electricity, It wasn't for doing the power

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Speaker 5: balance or any of that. The work we did was

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Speaker 5: totally based on using the carbon for manufacturing. That's the

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Speaker 5: work we did, Okay. I have no skin in the

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Speaker 5: game to keep in natural gas for power for anything

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Speaker 5: other than a transition. There's no reason to do that

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Speaker 5: because it is an emitter. It's not a bigger emitter

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Speaker 5: as call, but it's surely as an emitter. So you've

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Speaker 5: got to use it as a transition. That's it until

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Speaker 5: batteries become affordable and scatable can actually get more snowy hydros.

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Speaker 5: And why you need a gas pipeline is as much

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Speaker 5: to provide that transition for that, but more for industry,

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Speaker 5: which is why I'm trying to bring it back to

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Speaker 5: the feedstock troilware.

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Speaker 2: So when the former CEO of Dow Chemicals, who is

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Speaker 2: still on the board of some of the world's biggest

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Speaker 2: plastic manufacturers, talks about manufacturing, he's talking about plastics. I

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Speaker 2: looked into the National COVID nineteen coordination Commission report that

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Speaker 2: Laveras contributed to, and sure enough we get a picture

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Speaker 2: of the subtext of his appearance on Q and A,

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Speaker 2: one of the most popular shows from Australia's public broadcaster,

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Speaker 2: the ABC. On page twenty two, the report describes how

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Speaker 2: domestic demand for gas could grow further if a weldscale

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Speaker 2: ethylene complex were built Saudi equivalent created ten billion dollars

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Speaker 2: in revenues and twenty five thousand jobs. The Gas Fired

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Speaker 2: Recovery centers on fracking five key strategic gas basins in Australia,

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Speaker 2: and the first to be explored is the Beterloo basin

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Speaker 2: in the Northern Territory, near la Veris's hometown Darwin. Plans

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Speaker 2: to frack the Beterloo have attracted opposition from at least

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Speaker 2: six First Nations whose country and water will be affected.

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Speaker 8: You know, it's not like the big hole in the ground.

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Speaker 8: We can cover it all up. This could destroy country forever.

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Speaker 8: You can't go abuck and fits as aquifers, those underground

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Speaker 8: water systems. You can't fix the water once you've destroyed it.

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Speaker 2: Australia has only recognized native titles since the nineteen nineties,

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Speaker 2: but in practice the law gives little protection to sacred

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Speaker 2: sites and drinking water from fracking. More on this in

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Speaker 2: a minute. Under the Gas fired Recovery Plan, the federal

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Speaker 2: government has handed tens of millions of dollars worth of

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Speaker 2: grants to companies for exploration. In a press release, Minister

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Speaker 2: for Energy and Emissions Reduction Angus Taylor declared that be

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Speaker 2: Toloo Basin was a key element in the gas fired recovery.

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Speaker 2: Recent exploration has shown promising signs finding liquids rich gas

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Speaker 2: at a shallower depth than previously expected. Liquid's rich gas,

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Speaker 2: also known as wet gas, is particularly useful for plastics manufacturing,

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Speaker 2: which brings us back to Andrew Lavers's hometown, Darwin, where

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Speaker 2: Laverus was also an advisor to the Northern Territory Economic

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Speaker 2: Reconstruction Commission.

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Speaker 9: And the plan is to further industrialize Darwin Harbor to

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Speaker 9: create what they're calling value adds for gas. So that

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Speaker 9: would be the production of plastics and petroch chemicals in

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Speaker 9: Darwin Harbor, which we know to be a very toxic process.

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Speaker 2: So why exactly was Leveris on national television teaching us

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Speaker 2: about this word feedstock. Here's Kirsty Howie from the Environment

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Speaker 2: Center Northern Territory.

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Speaker 9: It's extremely important to resist the development of plants that

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Speaker 9: use gas as a feedstock plastics, because they would continue

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Speaker 9: to provide an impetus for further gas field developments even

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Speaker 9: if demand for gas for energy falls because of climate

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Speaker 9: change concerns.

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Speaker 2: We'll get back to plastics in a bit, but first

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Speaker 2: let's rewind back to twenty nineteen, when exploration first started

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Speaker 2: in the Beaterloo Basin on Gadangee Country.

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Speaker 8: Our creation story is about three mermaids that came in

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Speaker 8: from Nukah, and they traveled all around the old Country,

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Speaker 8: and they came to our place where they were really

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Speaker 8: sad for the ocean, and so they called up the ocean.

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Speaker 2: That's Ricky Dank, whose ancestors have lived on Goadangee Country,

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Speaker 2: about ten hours east of what is now called Darwin,

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Speaker 2: for thousands of years. Ricky says that the first her

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Speaker 2: family knew that a two kilometer deep well would be

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Speaker 2: drilled near one of her family's sacred sites was when

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Speaker 2: her grandmother saw trucks arriving. Water is sacred to Dank's

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Speaker 2: family because in their creation stories, it was mermaids who

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Speaker 2: brought the water inland.

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Speaker 8: Our creation story is about three mermaids that came in

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Speaker 8: from Nukah, and they traveled all around the country and

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Speaker 8: they came to our place where they were really sad

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Speaker 8: for the ocean, and so they called up the ocean.

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Speaker 2: Gadanjie country is mermaid's country where water is sacred and

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Speaker 2: women make the decisions as a matriarchal family. It's Ricky's

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Speaker 2: grandmothers who are the senior nimerinki old country.

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Speaker 7: It's Marabana, which means it's mermaid's country, women's country. So

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Speaker 7: women make the decisions for our country. So that's why

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Speaker 7: you'll see when I'm talking, it'll be me or my

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Speaker 7: granny's our senior nimrinki are grandmothers talking for country. So

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Speaker 7: it's women's country.

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Speaker 2: Ricky's grandmothers have seen a lot in their lifetimes. They

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Speaker 2: were only finally given native title to parts of their

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Speaker 2: land in the nineteen nineties when Australian courts overturned the

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Speaker 2: myth that Australia was uninhabited before colonizers arrived, known as Terrannalius.

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Speaker 8: It really ap say to me, because my grandmothers were

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Speaker 8: made to work with no pay. The were essentially slaves

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Speaker 8: by people coming onto their land and basically taking away

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Speaker 8: their rights and their freedom. And I feel like it's

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Speaker 8: kind of happening again now to them, that you know,

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Speaker 8: people again coming onto their country and stealing it after

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Speaker 8: it was rightfully handed back to us by the courts.

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Speaker 2: Ricky says her family were not properly consulted before fracking

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Speaker 2: started on their land. The Northern Land Council and Empire

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Speaker 2: Energy claim that consultations did take place, including during community

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Speaker 2: meetings where Ricky's grandmother, who Ricky says does not read

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Speaker 2: or speak English, was present. A moratorium unfracking in the

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Speaker 2: Northern Territory was only lifted after the government made commitments,

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Speaker 2: including that an independent body would be responsible for consultations.

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Speaker 2: At a Senate inquiry earlier this year, many concerns were

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Speaker 2: raised about the process, including the independence of research on

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Speaker 2: the effects of fracking on land and water in Australia,

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Speaker 2: much of which is funded by the gas industry itself.

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Speaker 2: Ricky's family has passed down the knowledge that the water

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Speaker 2: on their country is special from generation to generation, but

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Speaker 2: Australia's national science body, the CSIRO, is only just beginning

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Speaker 2: to catch up. Earlier this year, the Csiroro released new

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Speaker 2: research showing that the water in the aquifer is connected

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Speaker 2: across hundreds of kilometers after they discovered that tiny animals

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Speaker 2: living in the aquifer known as Staigafoona are closely related.

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Speaker 10: The scientific studies through the Northern Territory they're way behind.

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Speaker 10: They're basically flying through the dark.

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Speaker 2: Here's Nicholas Miliari, Fitzpatrick, A Yanyuwa and garrowa man and

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Speaker 2: a community organizer for seed Mob, speaking to a Senate

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Speaker 2: inquiry about the scientist's discovery.

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Speaker 10: They need to go and do all that scientific study

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Speaker 10: as it's been proven that the b lewis connected to

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Speaker 10: Matarankas through these little pawns in the water and they're

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Speaker 10: the same their brother and sister that they're not cousins,

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Speaker 10: they're the same. So they're very well connected in the

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Speaker 10: same water table. And that kind of scientific research needs

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Speaker 10: to be undertaken across the whole Northern Territory before anything

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Speaker 10: like this happens. I heard before someone was talking about, oh,

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Speaker 10: the water is not physically connected. We'll go and physically

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Speaker 10: prove that, because I'm pretty sure that no one's done

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Speaker 10: that work. You cannot just say that doesn't physically connected.

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Speaker 10: We know for thousands of years that a lot of

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Speaker 10: these water tables have been connected, and signs only catching

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Speaker 10: up now.

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Speaker 8: And you can actually see the water pulsating out of

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Speaker 8: the ground in certain places, and in those places you

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Speaker 8: can't actually see, you know where their bottom is because

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Speaker 8: of course it's connected to the aquifer.

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Speaker 2: For Ricky's family and thousands of First Nations people, the

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Speaker 2: water from the aquifer is literally life. Fracking poses risks

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Speaker 2: to their water supply as well as her family's cattle farm.

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Speaker 2: Yet despite the risks, the Australian government has been providing

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Speaker 2: funding for exploration in the region. In recent years, Australia

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Speaker 2: has been selling the idea that gas is a transition

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Speaker 2: fossil fuel. Although this hasn't stopped the government from approving

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Speaker 2: new coal mines, it has led Australia to becoming the

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Speaker 2: world's second biggest exporter of gas after Qatar.

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Speaker 11: So we've gone from being a relatively small gas exporter

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Speaker 11: to being the first or second largest lergy exporter in

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Speaker 11: the world. You know Katar is it's either rustle.

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Speaker 2: Then that's Stan Gosher from the Australasian Center for Corporate Responsibility.

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Speaker 2: They currently have a court case pending against one of

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Speaker 2: Australia's biggest gas companies, Santos, over it's claims that natural

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Speaker 2: gas is clean energy. Although the industry is leaning heavily

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Speaker 2: in Australia on suppose it get out of jail free

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Speaker 2: card of carbon capture and storage, even Angrea Laveres, as

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Speaker 2: we heard earlier, is aware that demand for gas as

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Speaker 2: an energy source is falling. One in four Australian households

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Speaker 2: now have rooftop solar and there are plans for a

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Speaker 2: solar farm in the Beterloo Basin that would export renewable

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Speaker 2: energy to Singapore. But this hasn't stopped both of Australia's

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Speaker 2: major political parties, the Liberal Party, which in Australia is

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Speaker 2: our right wing conservative party, and the Labor Party, which

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Speaker 2: is the major center left party, from backing a significant

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Speaker 2: increase in Australia's emissions by fracking five new basins, including

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Speaker 2: the be Toloo.

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Speaker 8: And we had been speaking to politicians about this and

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Speaker 8: warning them about this, but from our understanding, our feeling

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Speaker 8: that politicians are welcoming fracking their welcoming mining, there seems

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Speaker 8: to be a push towards this kind of industry in Australia,

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Speaker 8: even though everywhere else they're stopping it.

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Speaker 2: Among the companies planning to frack the Beterloo, one relatively

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Speaker 2: junior company known as Empire Energy has done surprisingly well,

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Speaker 2: attracting twenty six million dollars in government grants and tax subsidies.

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Speaker 2: Empire got its start in the heart of fracking Pennsylvania,

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Speaker 2: that has recently switched its strategy to focus on Australia's

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Speaker 2: Northern territory. The Environment Center Northern Territory is currently in

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Speaker 2: court challenging the Australian government for providing a twenty one

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Speaker 2: million dollar grant to a subsidiary of Empire Energy called

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Speaker 2: Imperial Oil and Gas. Yes, they really called their companies

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Speaker 2: Empire and Imperial.

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Speaker 9: And the likely emissions from cranking the Beloo Basin are exorbitant.

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Speaker 9: It was estimated that they could increase Australia's total emissions

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Speaker 9: by some eight percent, and subsequently it became apparent that

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Speaker 9: actually that might have been a vast underestimation, and indeed

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Speaker 9: its emissions could increase Australia's emissions by up to twenty

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Speaker 9: percent and really undermine any ability for Australia to meet

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Speaker 9: it's already poultry targets under the Paris Agreement.

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Speaker 2: So if fracking is so profitable, why do the companies

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Speaker 2: behind it in Australia need government subsidies to fund exploration.

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Speaker 2: Amy has been asking a lot of questions about the

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Speaker 2: supposed profits of fracking this season. Questions about the economic

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Speaker 2: benefits of the industry also came up during a Senate

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Speaker 2: inquiry into fracking in the Beaterloo Basin earlier this year.

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Speaker 2: Here's Senator Sarah Hunson Young of the Australian Greens questioning

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Speaker 2: the managing director of Empire Energy, Alex Underwood. Okay, so

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Speaker 2: you haven't actually pumped anything into the Australian economy yet.

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Speaker 6: No I would disagree with that, Senator. We are investing

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Speaker 6: heavily in the Australian economy right now. We carried out

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Speaker 6: a size program in same we drilled our first well

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Speaker 6: in twenty nineteen. We carried out practice simulation and flow

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Speaker 6: testing of that well earlier this year, and we will

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Speaker 6: continue to invest and that is putting capital into Australia's economy.

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Speaker 2: This is a two kilometer deep exploration mind that Ricky

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Speaker 2: Dank's grandmother discovered was going in when she saw trucks

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Speaker 2: turning up on their country. Can you tell us how

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Speaker 2: much tax Company Tax Empire and its subsidiaries have paid

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Speaker 2: in Australia in the recent.

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Speaker 6: Years, certainly, Well, we've never generated profits in Australia and

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Speaker 6: so there's no tax on which to pay because we've

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Speaker 6: only ever generated losses.

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Speaker 12: We obviously pay.

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Speaker 6: We obviously paid taxes associated with the payrolls and so

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Speaker 6: on and so forth for the people that we employ

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Speaker 6: in this country, but we have not ever generated a

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Speaker 6: profit that would have tax.

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Speaker 11: Paid on it.

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Speaker 4: So you haven't paid any company taxes yet. How many

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Speaker 4: people do you employ?

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Speaker 12: So in.

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Speaker 6: Terms of direct full time employees in Australia, it's approximately

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Speaker 6: around eight and then when we carry out work programs,

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Speaker 6: obviously they are not people directly employed by our company,

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Speaker 6: but that can grow to thirty to fifty people.

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Speaker 8: At a time. We also.

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Speaker 6: Provide a lot of work for Australian small businesses, including consultants.

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Speaker 6: That would be roughly double that eight people full time workforce.

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Speaker 2: So Mba Energy, which has received millions in government subsidies,

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Speaker 2: has yet to make a profit in Australia and employees

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Speaker 2: fifty or less people here. So where exactly will the

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Speaker 2: money and jobs that will make fracking the be to

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Speaker 2: looo basin profitabile come from. Here's Levers again on Q

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Speaker 2: and A. This time he's been questioned by another panelist

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Speaker 2: on the show, former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, about

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Speaker 2: a pretty questionable figure Levers had just mentioned.

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Speaker 3: Andrew, where are the eight hundred and fifty thousand jobs

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Speaker 3: that used gases.

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Speaker 5: Feedstock, fertilizers, plastics, chemicals explore eight hundred and working on

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Speaker 5: Australia making plastic?

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Speaker 8: Yes?

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Speaker 10: Is that right?

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Speaker 5: Not plastics all those industries.

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Speaker 1: I don't think that's true.

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Speaker 2: Q and A is a live program and often the

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Speaker 2: host will fact check claims during the show, but in

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Speaker 2: this case, the ABC took over a month to put

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Speaker 2: out a correction. It seems somehow the former CEO and

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Speaker 2: advisor to US presidents got confused and was referring to

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Speaker 2: the total number of people working in manufacturing in Australia and.

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Speaker 11: Behind this Manufacturing task force. You know, he claimed that

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Speaker 11: there was eight hundred and fifty thousand jobs that were

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Speaker 11: currently dependent on gases of feedstock and that's pretty much

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Speaker 11: the number in all manufacturing, which so we know that

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Speaker 11: it's only about ten percent of those jobs are actually

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Speaker 11: dependent on gas to manufacture products, whether it's fertilizers, plastics

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Speaker 11: and chemicals and so on, So the numbers were completely overstated.

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Speaker 2: The Northern Territory government released maps as parts of a

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Speaker 2: tender process that show hundreds of hectares designated for potential

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Speaker 2: use as ethylene and petrochemical plants.

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Speaker 9: On Darwin Harbor, there's also a place which has a

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Speaker 9: very high concentration of mangroves of incredible biodiversity values, is

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Speaker 9: used by local people for fishing and recreation, and of

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Speaker 9: course has been used for many thousands of years by.

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Speaker 13: The Larachia people.

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Speaker 9: And what's proposed in Middle Arm is when you look

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Speaker 9: at the map of what's proposed which was released as

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Speaker 9: part of a tender last year in the Northern Territory,

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Speaker 9: it shows Middle Arm pretty much obliterated and completely covered

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Speaker 9: by a range of industrial facilities to essentially facilitate gas production,

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Speaker 9: processing and these value adds for gas for plastics, petrochemicals, etc.

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Speaker 2: Even if the transition to renewable energy sees demand for

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Speaker 2: Beeterloo gas fall, as Amy has reported, the industry is

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Speaker 2: banking on demand for plastics increasing despite the environmental costs.

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Speaker 13: Clearly, plastics produce greenhouse gas emissions at every stage of

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Speaker 13: their life cycle, including most notably their decomposition at the

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Speaker 13: end of life in landfill across the world.

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Speaker 2: So far, the government has given about fifty million dollars

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Speaker 2: to companies exploring fracking in the Bee Toloo, but these

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Speaker 2: grants are relatively small in comparison to the billions of

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Speaker 2: dollars that both the federal and Northern Territory governments will

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Speaker 2: potentially have to spend on roads and pipelines in order

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Speaker 2: for private companies to pipe the gas to Darwin. Yet,

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Speaker 2: the Senate Inquiry also heard that, despite the significant costs

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Speaker 2: to the public, gas companies in Australia only sporadically pay

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Speaker 2: company taxes. Here's Nicholas Miliari Fitzpatrick again telling the Senate

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Speaker 2: Inquiry what fifty million dollars could mean to Indigenous communities.

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Speaker 10: Fixing roads, more houses. We need programs in reviving our

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Speaker 10: language and cultural practices, but also into the tourism and

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Speaker 10: building small businesses in our communities. There's so much potential

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Speaker 10: for building our economy in that area of tourism and

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Speaker 10: even cultural education. You know, there's a lot of Australians

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Speaker 10: out there that need cultural education. We split up too much,

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Speaker 10: but there there's plenty of other ways to use that

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Speaker 10: fifty million dollars. And as we are in poverty up

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Speaker 10: here in the territory, like we've we got a mine

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Speaker 10: next to our country there MacArthur River mine making billions

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Speaker 10: of dollars. And you don't look at Borrella. Borrel don't

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Speaker 10: look like a billion dollar place. It looks like it's

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Speaker 10: been forgotten for thirty years. And that's exactly what's happened.

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Speaker 10: Like there's no footpath anywhere around Borloa. The kids are

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Speaker 10: still walking on the road. There has been people by

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Speaker 10: getting run over on them roads. You know, we need

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Speaker 10: to be really thinking for the future for all of us.

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Speaker 10: Like these kind of industries, all it's doing is hurting

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Speaker 10: us even more. We got the most number in juvenile prison,

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Speaker 10: most suicides. We've been in pain ever since colonization. We're

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Speaker 10: trying to recover and get back to get on our feet.

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Speaker 10: And industries like this threatening our water. Well, we live

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Speaker 10: on water. Everything runs of water, trees, animals. With the

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Speaker 10: driest continent on earth. Put that fifty million dollars into

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Speaker 10: building a huge water security around the Inte.

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Speaker 2: For Ricky's family, the potential damage caused by frecking could

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Speaker 2: irreversibly destroy their sacred sites and cultural practices.

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Speaker 8: If this happens, we won't be able to continue being

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Speaker 8: gone out push, which means we won't be able to

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Speaker 8: continue our ceremony. We won't be able to, you know,

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Speaker 8: follow our song lines, which is so deeply connected to water.

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Speaker 8: So we're scared not just for our country but for

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Speaker 8: our culture that this will discontinue our sixty five thousand

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Speaker 8: years of being. So that's what fracking means to us.

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Speaker 8: It feels like you're trying to grasp water and it's

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Speaker 8: slipping through your hands. That's how it feels like when

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Speaker 8: you're trying to protect country. And this is why we

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Speaker 8: want to look after it, because we know how precious

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Speaker 8: it is.

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Speaker 4: Wow, Lindall, this is an incredible story, and it reminds

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Speaker 4: me so much of all the stories we've been hearing

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Speaker 4: about in communities where they're just kind of being ambushed

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Speaker 4: by fracking here in the US too. One of the

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Speaker 4: people that you spoke with said this too, But it

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Speaker 4: does just really strike me. Is I that while other

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Speaker 4: countries are starting to realize that they need to give

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Speaker 4: fracking the boot, Australia is doubling down on it.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's really not great. And the scientific research that

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Speaker 2: the government is supposed to be doing on the environmental

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Speaker 2: impacts of fracking, the Beterloo is being funded by the

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Speaker 2: gas industries, So I'm sure that's fine.

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Speaker 14: And so these five big tracking companies got together and

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Speaker 14: basically injected a whole lot of money into the CSIRO

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Speaker 14: and said we want.

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Speaker 12: To be the ones who do the research on what

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Speaker 12: the impacts of oil.

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Speaker 14: And gas extraction are in Australia.

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Speaker 2: That's Mark Og from the Australia Institute, who closely follows

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Speaker 2: the research being done at Australia's National Science Agency, the CSIRO,

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Speaker 2: by an initiative funded by five of our biggest fracking

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Speaker 2: companies called the Gas Industry Social and Environmental Research Alliance.

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Speaker 2: Or to Sarah for sure.

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Speaker 12: A study that Jazeera did on potential contamination of air,

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Speaker 12: soil and water by fracking. And what they did was

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Speaker 12: looked at six wells in Queensland and did some sampling

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Speaker 12: around those six wells. Now there's nineteen thousand wells in Queensland.

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Speaker 12: So they chose a very very small sample, and that

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Speaker 12: sample of wells was chosen by Origin Energy, the proponement

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Speaker 12: company right in Origin obviously have a huge vested interest

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Speaker 12: in not finding contamination of their wells.

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Speaker 2: Industry funding of research has been growing in Australia, where

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Speaker 2: universities were particularly badly hit by the pandemic. I looked

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Speaker 2: into this Advanced Manufacturing partnership of Obama's, which Laveris was

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Speaker 2: the co chair of back in twenty thirteen, and I

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Speaker 2: found that they put out this report that recommended eliminating

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Speaker 2: cups on the amount of corporate investment in university research programs.

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Speaker 2: And Laveras isn't afraid to get behind a bit of

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Speaker 2: industry funded research himself. At the beginning, I mentioned he

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Speaker 2: is the former CEO of Dow Chemicals, the world's second

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Speaker 2: biggest maker of plastic waste. Well, that figure actually came

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Speaker 2: from the Mindaroo Foundation, a philanthropic organization, and who was

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Speaker 2: a director on the board of Mindaroo Andrew Lavers.

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Speaker 4: Oh god, So at this point, is there anything that

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Speaker 4: Ricky Dank and her family can do? I know you

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Speaker 4: mentioned a suit, could that potentially put a stop.

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Speaker 2: To this Unfortunately, a lot of the problems are around

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Speaker 2: the colonial laws that have done so little to protect

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Speaker 2: the native title that Ricky's grandmothers went back. Ricky says

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Speaker 2: her family have struggle to find lawyers to represent them

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Speaker 2: in addressing how the consultations around native title take place. Currently,

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Speaker 2: both of Australia's major political parties support fracking the Beaterloo,

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Speaker 2: but the Senate inquiry heard from a lot of other

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Speaker 2: tradition irons with similar consents to Ricky's families, and we'll

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Speaker 2: hand down its findings next to you.

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Speaker 4: Ugh, that is it for this time.

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Speaker 1: Lyndall, definitely keep us posted on this and I appreciate

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Speaker 1: you bringing this story to us. We will be back

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Speaker 1: with more episodes on the gas industry in the months ahead,

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Speaker 1: so make sure you're subscribed so you won't miss it.

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Speaker 3: Thanks for listening and we'll see you next time. Drilled

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Speaker 3: is an original Critical Frequency production. Today's episode was reported

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Speaker 3: by Lyndall Rollins. Our producer is Juliana Bradley, mixing and

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00:26:45,400 --> 00:26:49,840
Speaker 3: mastering by Peter Duff. Our First Amendment attorney is James

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00:26:49,840 --> 00:26:54,040
Speaker 3: Wheaton of the First Amendment Project. Big thanks to our

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Speaker 3: latest Patreon supporters. Mary mc Morris Biell, Evelyn Carl Wilson,

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Speaker 3: Maureene dot com, and Sadine Keller. If you would like

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Speaker 3: to support our work, you can do that at Patreon

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Speaker 3: dot com. Slash Drilled, thanks for listening, and we'll see

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Speaker 3: you next time.