During 1937, Lang Hancock from the Mulga Downs pastoral station in Western Australia began mining and milling activities for blue asbestos (crocidolite) at the nearby Yampire Gorge.

The primitive, predatory and reckless extractive mining venture, with its 3D dig, dump and depart tactics, exploited cohorts of vulnerable migrants who were deployed to the region under a coercive federal government labour policy that was reminiscent of the brutal Soviet Gulag system.

Many itinerants slept in tents almost a kilometre from the mine site and the filthy hellhole was eventually acquired by Australian Blue Asbestos, a subsidiary of CSR Limited but there was no significant improvement in the callous, Dickensian conditions. The rapacious plundering bulldozed ahead without any skerrick of respect or sensitivity towards the traditional landowners.

Much of the malevolent ecological vandalism and catastrophic socioeconomic consequences are described in the prolonged and horrendous plight of the browbeaten Banjima people. During a television interview, Lang Hancock proposed statutory sterilisation of the Indigenous community via its potable water supply to resolve landowner conflict. It’s such a shame that artificial intelligence cannot be used retrospectively to implement this radical solution specifically towards the fecund mining magnate.

Even before the 1930s, an indisputable body of scientific evidence verified a causal nexus between asbestos exposure and respiratory diseases. It remains incontestable that the corporate brigands and state government poltroons were fully aware of the associated health risks. Numerous Wittenoom employees and former residents have since died from asbestos-related diseases. Moreover, many itinerants returned to their country of origin and subsequent health records were never obtained or disclosed and the exact death toll remains uncertain.

In Australia, malignant mesothelioma is a significant public health issue and additional cases will be identified each year due to its aetiology and inherent latency. The national death toll for asbestos-related diseases will eventually exceed its World War I casualties. Those horrific events at Gallipoli inspired a tradition of annual remembrance, but the bereaved families of most mesothelioma victims typically encounter a patronising disposition of unaccountable power and when the rich make war, it’s the poor who die.

This boom, bust and quit cycle has been replicated on many other occasions elsewhere around the globe. Additional notorious crusades include the WR Grace vermiculite mining project near the Montana township of Libby in the US and the abandoned Rio Tinto Panguna copper mine on Bougainville in Papua New Guinea. In its insatiable quest to conquer nature, extractive mining predators have established a new religion of science that merely progresses with each funeral.

Mining and milling of asbestos at Wittenoom officially ceased in December 1966 although numerous Hancock group employees continued working among the mine tailings and contaminated gorges. The swashbuckling recidivist pleaded ignorance over the associated health risks and claimed activities were endorsed by statutory authorities. Almost three decades later, a state parliamentary inquiry report recommended its government force CSR Limited and the Hancock group of companies to remediate the contaminated site. An independent report summarises the serious public health risks and extensive environmental damage, and considers remediation with encapsulation of the site will cost approximately $150 million.

The state government eventually dissolved Wittenoom’s status as a township and it is now classified as a contaminated site. Toxic tailings still remain and pollution extends well beyond a designated exclusion zone. Meanwhile, the traditional neoliberal dichotomy of privatising profit and socialising loss prevails and rehabilitation costs will inevitably cascade onto beleaguered taxpayers despite extremely lucrative annual mining royalties.

Many neoliberal acolytes among the fourth estate support the fossil fuels sector and include The Spectator Australia, which never fails to deliver professionally researched articles with thought-provoking analysis and a fair share of malicious propaganda. Recent editions have featured a series of beguiling advertisements for Rossi Ironlite safety footwear and the latest issue promotes the Comfortably Tough 7954 Gina Safety Boot.

Rossi Boots is now owned by Gina Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting and its extensive range of safety footwear is no longer manufactured in Australia. Moreover, bereaved families will confirm there is nothing comfortably tough about losing loved ones from occupational respiratory diseases such as mesothelioma, black lung or silicosis.

The current mine dust lung diseases toll in Queensland is nudging towards seven hundred victims. This excruciatingly painful and debilitating ailment enigmatically attenuates throughout coalfields in New South Wales but absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. The bereaved dependents will soon discover the theatre of law has very little to do with the discovery of truth and realisation of justice and their only parole is death or dementia.

Back in the 1930s, George Orwell’s fine polemic, Keep the Aspidistra Flying, bemoaned materialism and described advertising as rattling a stick inside a swill bucket. How many times must a man turn his head and pretend that he just doesn’t see?

The fossil fuels sector with its dig, dump and depart strategy attracts many free-market fundamentalists. These include our federal Member for Palermo and that nauseating stupid man’s smart person, Jordan Peterson. This high priest of tyranny jumped aboard the neoliberal gravy train and became a founder member of the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship. Its advisory board consists of many unflushable Australian turds although several notable omissions include Tom Domican, Eddie Obeid, Christopher Dale Flannery, Judy Moran and our former federal minister for kneecaps.

Its worldview reflects and aligns with Ayn Rand objectivism and places an inordinate emphasis on individualism. This supports the neoliberal doctrine with its sinister divide and conquer strategy and reinforces that we are creatures of our own destiny, which encourages us to walk alone.

Many motivational lectures and recent literature from Peterson provide powerful life advice using the popular Clean your room metaphor. Maybe Georgina Hope Rinehart AO should review the meme and extend her renowned philanthropy towards the impoverished Banjima people and remediate the mess that plundering CSR executives and her late father have left behind.

Footnote:

The author acknowledges the prolonged plight of the Banjima people and you’ll never walk alone.

The views expressed in this article may or may not reflect those of Pearls and Irritations.