Q & A - "The Drought"
ABC TV program "Q & A" hosted a panel consisting of politicians, independent whistle-blower, president of the national farmers federation, and community representative, in front of a live studio audience, and also with some pre-recorded and presubmitted public questions.
Amid all the obfuscation of politics and faffing around over buck passing and the minutiae of a failed management plan, it took an audience member - elder Bruce Shillingsworth, to speak the real truth ..... watch the man himself speak .....
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?st...5293&id=388551467951802&fs=1&focus_composer=0
BRUCE SHILLINGSWORTH
"Look, we’ve just come back from the big Yaama Ngunna Baaka Corroboree on the rivers – Walgett, Bre, Bourke, Wilcannia, Menindee. And look, it took a group of... There was a convoy of 300 people. And on the rivers, we had about 1,000 in the Corroboree each night. Those Indigenous people that come on that journey spoke to a lot of our elders in those communities, and they wanted to hear from the voices of those communities, those voiceless... They’ve been voiceless over the last couple of years. Look, the impact of the water mismanagement, and the corruption and the corporate greed and capitalism in this country has killed our rivers. It’s killed...
They have killed our communities. Look, we’ve been out in those communities. Now, the health has deteriorated in our communities. Our old people are now dying. Our young people are at a higher rate of mental health... Suicides, dialysis. People that are on dialysis can’t get water to flush their machines, so they’ve got to move on, now, migrate to bigger towns, bigger rural towns and cities. So, a lot of the First Nation people are leaving their tribal...their lands that they’ve been...you know, that they’ve lived on for thousands of thousands of years. How do we bring back the 50-year-old cods? How do we bring back the freshwater mussels? How do we bring back the aquatic life, the ecosystem and the animals that relied on the river and the water? They’re now completely dead. They’re extinct. This has happened over the last 100 years. Australia needs to wake up.
I’m listening tonight, we’re listening to... There’s two things that I can hear. It’s water and profit. Why are we selling water to make profit? That’s what I’m hearing. And here, my people on the river, that relied on those animals for their food source for thousands of years, are now dying. This is the second wave of genocide. It’s happening in my community. So, I’m going to speak on my community, and I want to raise a voice for those that have been voiceless...over the last 230 years. That’s what’s frustrating me, and that’s what’s frustrating our community. Why are our people dying young? Why are our people suffering? Because of the greed. The taking of our water. Where is our rights to water? First Nation rights to water? We have a right to fresh water. Put the water back in the river. Not just for us...but for the environment."
Watch the full program here, which also has the full transcript of the entire program:
https://www.abc.net.au/qanda/2019-28-10/11624850
Chosun :gh: