Wittenoom wish should be elder’s legacy

THOSE fortunate enough to meet Maitland Parker will always remember his cheeky demeanour and disarming smile.

The Banjima elder was a force for good in life and will continue to be for a long time to come.

He was an incredible man, and it was little wonder leaders of our major miners and governments held his counsel in such high regard.

There was one final fight for his people Mr Parker kept at right until his passing.

Wittenoom. In his final years Mr Parker, who contracted mesothelioma, led a campaign to clean up asbestos in the condemned former townsite and its surrounding gorges.

That clean-up – the size of the asbestos tailing piles are unlike anything most readers will have seen – was in 2022 estimated to cost anywhere between $100 million and $600 million just for remedial work.

An eye-watering figure for an eye-watering task.

The big question then becomes one of ultimate responsibility for the clean-up.

Here, focus inevitably shifts to the state government, Lang Hancock, Peter Wright and CSR.

In 2019, former lands minister Ben Wyatt said the companies that created the mess should pay to clean it up.

They are responsible for starting a humanitarian disaster that is still killing people today.

Lang Hancock and business partner, Peter Wright, mined Wittenoom from 1939 to 1943 at a smaller scale before bringing in majority stakeholder CSR, which ultimately took over in 1948 and expanded.

The duo repurchased the operation in an ultimately failed bid to build a major industry base there after CSR left in 1966.

Mr Hancock never accepted responsibility for the deaths caused by the mining operation he created.

The Western Australian mining legends may not be responsible for the bulk of the tailings, but neither can the companies they gave rise to wash their hands of it.

There are many who feel the fortunes linked to the Hancock and Wright empires should be used for the clean-up.

In Mr Hancock and Mr Wright’s defence, they operated within the law and the bounds of what the government of the day allowed them to do.

Moving policy goalposts on companies is a dangerous game.

The same issue comes to the fore when pinning the blame on CSR, the Australian industrial major that ran the asbestos mines at their busiest.

During that time, the company was chastised for high dust levels, warned of lung damage risks, and criticised for poor working conditions.

Unlike Mr Hancock, CSR accepted responsibility after decades of damning court and mine inspectors’ judgements found the company was, among other things, “recklessly indifferent” to safety.

And, again, despite all the criticisms, government agencies allowed CSR to keep mining.

So, should the buck stop with government?

The deadly nature of asbestos was known by the early 1900s, long before mining began.

The state and federal governments allowed mining to start, supported its expansion, encouraged people to move there, and have for more than 50 years kicked the can down the road while tailings leach out into the landscape.

Every year those tailings are left exposed the problem and its cost grows.

Wet season rains pick up the fibres from Yampire and Wittenoom gorges and spread them through the Fortescue marsh, which feeds into Millstream-Chichester National Park and beyond.

Roebourne and Point Samson are littered with asbestos, Youngaleena Aboriginal community is only 10 kilometres away from Yampire Gorge, and countless cultural and sacred water sites are on the floodpath.

There was a whiff of action in 2022 when the final residents – outlandish Austrian Mario Hartmann, gardener extraordinaire Lorraine Thomas, and lifestyle-seeker Peter Hayward – were evicted.

But while the state government can pull down as many road signs as it wants, online maps and information mean Wittenoom will always be easy to find.

And no matter how many warnings are put up and how many impediments are placed in the way, there will always be those who – like myself in my bulletproof era – find the curiousity in abandonment too tempting to miss.

There have been plenty of suggestions to clean up the mess over the decades: dump and cover the tailings in exhausted mine pits, use chemical binding agents, and cap the piles with concrete, for example.

All would require a mammoth undertaking.

Measures to mitigate risks to those undertaking the work would be – COVID-19 aside – the biggest health logistics challenge the state has faced.

One microscopic fibre is all it takes to condemn someone to death.

But the clean-up must be done.

Not so it can be explored for mining again or to make it safe for tourists.

But for the traditional owners who are obliged to look after Ngurra, regardless of risk.

For Mr Parker.