“There’s a hole in the bucket, dear Liza” are the words of an old song and bring our attention to the big holes being carved out of the Australian landscape. Hundreds of millions of tonnes of coal, iron ore and other minerals are being dug up and shipped overseas.
I understand that the mines, when exhausted, are to be restored to their original condition. Can anyone confirm if this is true? Or will Australia be left with a mass of ugly, gaping holes, when the mines are played out?
Where will the hundreds of millions of tonnes of rock and gravel come from when the open cut mines are finished? Are we going to demolish part of the Great Dividing Range? Oh no, that would never do! We can’t interfere with the habitat of the disease carrying, horse killing, human endangering flying foxes.
Most of the mines are foreign owned and are of little long-term benefit to the country. If our governments had control of our finances and didn’t have massive debts to foreign banks, we would not have to dig up Australia to pay the huge interest bill and help feed the furnaces of China.
For every shipload of minerals we export, one should be returned full of foreign rocks, gravel and top soil to replace the prime farm land that is being ruined by the mining.
Jay Nauss,
Glen Aplin
