Out of the mist …an image by suburbanbloke
Australia, like most countries in the world, nominates a particularly significant day to symbolise the modern nation state. The modern nation that is Oz has its origins as a penal colony founded by the British who decided that the country was simply a piece of property they could claim by the wonderful expedience of planting a flag and announcing they owned the land. Understandably the indigenous aborigines refer to Australia Day as Invasion Day.
Since then the invading population of largely European origins has achieved some significant milestones. According to Wikipedia, 70% of the native vegetation has been cleared and the surviving Aborigines have a life expectancy that is approximately 20 years less than the average white Australian. The farming practices imported from Europe have proven to be incredibly unsuitable in this hot dry land. As a result land degradation, dry land salinity and erosion marred substantial areas of once productive arable land. The inland waterways of the south east are tottering on the brink of collapse poisoned by blue green algae, overrun with imported pests like European Carp and starved of water by a rapacious system of dams that “manage” the water for the farms and cities.
So my reflections on Invasion Day (the day the British formally began the hostile European invasion of Australia) are coloured by what 200 years of occupation has done to this piece of the earth. While our Prime Minister and others talk about the “greatest nation” and a place of opportunity that is built on some questionable notions of egalitarianism and a “fair go” little is said about the plainly unsustainable ecological practices that underpin the modern Australia. In that context I would like to draw my readers attention to just one example, however it is an example which illustrates the intellectual disconnect that is a hallmark of 21st century humanity in this country.
The issue is water. Amongst other dubious claims that Australia makes about itself is the idea that this country is the driest and hottest continent on the planet. We thrust out our chests and bang loudly as though this fact is somehow an indication of just how tough and resourceful Australians can be in the face of adversity. We proudly point to ecological disasters like the Snowy Mountains Hydro Scheme and claim that they somehow represent a crowning glory in our battle to overcome this harsh and unforgiving land. Yet all these words and metaphors obscure a simple reality: when the white men invaded this country and commenced their initial forays into the interior they found a few rivers, sources of drinkable water that sustained their explorations and the indigenous populations of humans and animals. No doubt Hume and Hovell on their famous journey from Sydney to Port Phillip Bay enjoyed their river crossings as a time when they could refill water bottles and maybe catch the odd fish.
Yet these days the water quality of our inland waterways, in particular the rivers that make up the Murray Darling basin are pretty much undrinkable in their untreated state. You probably could drink it if your life depended on it but in most places the river water is contaminated by high levels of nitrogen which in turn breeds noxious blooms of algae, not to mention the usual pollution from other man made sources such as mines and factories. The river themselves are often slower due to the regulatory effect of upstream dams and weirs and carry sediment that has been flushed into the rivers from the creeks eroded by decades of inappropriate farming. As a result, the water of the Murray which sustains the city of Adelaide must be heavily treated to remove an unusually high level of salt and other contaminants, a process that seems unlikely to be sustained as the SE of Oz continues to feel the effects of a warming planet.
This problem of water is conveniently projected as a challenge to town planning or farming but it seems equally obvious that the “challenge” is not so much a challenge but a consequence of 200 years of exploitative land use. In Canberra, where federal parliament sits to debate matters of importance and device policies that supposedly lead to a better Australia, approximately 300,000 people routinely live their daily lives. They wash in fresh water and they flush their toilets, they pave the roads and create artificial lakes to trap the resultant stormwater where a few enthusiastic Canberrans can enjoy sailing or canoeing. Yet the price of this comfortable existence is not truly paid by those who enjoy running water from a tap, nor is the obvious sanitary affect of a functional sewage system considered since the whole notion of a sewage system is to effortlessly remove such concerns from the minds of men, women and children. But the conversion of pure fresh water into sewage does have a consequence and despite the effectiveness of Canberra’s sewage treatment plant, it is still a fact that the Murrumbidgee River receives 90 megalitres of Canberra’s waste water every day, all this water coming originally from fresh water sources that used to flow unimpeded into the river before the arrival of the Europeans.
Even more revealing of the exploitative attitude in the minds of Canberrans is a recent debate over the question of recycling drinkable water. The idea was floated during the most recent dry spell that saw dam levels drop to around 30% of capacity and the local water utility conducted a pilot scheme to investigate the idea. Overwhelmingly Canberrans rejected the idea that they should have to drink their own waste water yet it is obviously okay for water which is less effectively treated to be pumped into the major artery of our inland waterways.
For people whose lives are conditioned by what they see and hear in the mainstream media and who have no experience of nature in a relatively unspoilt state, the idea of a river whose major tributary is a sewage treatment works might seem like an acceptable state of affairs but the natural order is as unforgiving as it is undeniable and the long term consequences of such exploitative behaviour are starting to emerge. Native fish stocks are almost vanishing as are other native aquatic species. Replacing them, probably briefly on a geological time scale, are the invading pests like the carp. The outbreaks of poisonous blue green algae are now so common that they hardly rate as news and most of the waterways are lined with a slimy build-up of conventional algae as they are deprived the flushing effect of floods and enriched by nitrogen rich run-off from farms.
This is not something to be proud of as an Australian. It shows a criminal disregard for the very land that sustains us and the continuing practices that see the process accelerate, Canberra is projected to grow to 500,000 people over the next 20 years, demonstrate a dangerous contempt for biological and ecological processes. Instead of building unsustainable societies based on fictitious symbolism it is time for Australia to take a seriously long look at what it has destroyed in the last 200 years and made an attempt to repair some of the damage. It was easy to say sorry to the Aborigines, that was cost free, but doing something positive about their plight is as unlikely to happen as doing something real about the lifeblood of all humans in this hot dry place, our water. Neither is cause for celebration on Australia Day.
Out of the mists we Europeans came, we played briefly in the golden light and gorged ourselves on the fruits of heaven before we disappeared…
