How is it Corporations
Get state funding?
When we, as common men
We, find our cause
is often overlooked
our case is good and cooked
Its like rowing on a river
without oars
white water doesn’t calm
because of circumstance
on the contrary
its harder to survive
we bruise and scrape our knuckles
and as such we suffer pain
we may manage to navigate
but destruction is our gain
We live, in Wiluna shire
The Ngaah yajana people, who
have lived upon this land of ours
for many a year, a clue
We’re very close
to Nature, and we so understand
the climate, and the fauna
And we realise, what’s planned
Fear we’re kind of soaked in it
it fills each waking hour
For what in fact is happening
is we rapidly lose our power
all the little things we have
Toro threatens to
Take away and destroy them
So what are we to do?
Mother Earth, she knows pain too
the uranium ore, she holds
She knows it will be coarsely torn away
it all unfolds
15 k from where we live, from where we
love
and from where we stay
its where our daughters
and their daughters
feel comfortable to be
but threats of mining
and the risks of radio activity
Tis where the eucalyptus
their silver leaves engage
a bounty, and a haven
you don’t have to be
a sage
to realise Australia
has its share of light
and the red earth
all around us
harbours
much that’s out of sight
which is why the state can see
its better to support
The corporate
than the likes of you or me
extraction isn’t easy
and often water’s used
here in the Western Desert
we are, being abused
to waste our precious water
suppressing airborne dust
but this is clearly paramount
and thus it must be just
open pits, heap leaching
or in situ leaching, are
ways that the extraction is done
and they do scar
Mother Earth and clearly
the people living near
are subject to the growing risks
and, on going fear
Uranium, emits a harmful radon gas
Lung Cancer the result, for miners who
work, and the risk for the people
living in the vicinity
is high as we have learned
thus its the view
That our lives in Wiluna
are more hazardous, and we
are threatened by the mining
by this new activity
900 or so kilometres from Perth, we are
1200 tonnes of Uranium per year
14 years or more they will be drilling
so truthfully it becomes very clear
the radio active components
to be transported
We ourselves feel thwarted by it all
the destruction of our homeland
again we have no say
Nuclear Power Plants
apparently are the chosen way
forward now in energy
and the people matter less
where they live
and what they do
for them, a little stress
is worth the massive energy
that can be made to be
profitable for Government
into infinity.
The people do not matter
The Government do not care
They forget it was the people
Who cared and put them there
But the Government are crazy
their technical knowledge poor
they listen to the corporates
and the people they ignore
cleaning up the areas
when drilling is complete
is never done correctly
when the land is tired and beat
the people many sick
or dead, and have lost the will to fight
they live then in the darkness
they may never find the light
Wiluna may be doomed
if Toro gets its way
it appears to me Glen Cooke
and his community will pay
the price for living near a place
where Uranium is found
For when the miners come
then the only sound
is the crying of our babies
of the mothers and those who
have died before their time
which is what the people do
Rex Tyler is a Poet, Campaigner, former owner of an organic shop of 30 years, and Public Speaker living in Berkhamsted, UK.