Media: 'Yurlu | Country tells the story of town erased’ - The Saturday Paper
Story by Susan Chenery, The Saturday Paper
17 November 2025
Yurlu | Country tells the story of town erased
It’s an old, old story.
The aerial shots – and there are many – sweep across red earth dusted with gnarled eucalyptus, sculptural
escarpment, steep gorges carved into sheer rock, flocks of cockatoos high on the wing. But where once there
were campfires beside waterholes, now there is poison. Where once was a thriving company town are the
boarded-up remnants of houses. A contaminated ghost town.
Wittenoom was erased from maps in 2007, but the toxic legacy of its purpose, mining blue asbestos, remains.
The contaminated site covers a staggering 46,840 hectares. Three million tonnes of waste was dumped over
the life of the mine and has remained there for 60 years.
This is also the traditional homeland of the Banjima people, who have been here for tens of thousands of
years. “The miners never spoke to the Aboriginal people,” says Elder Maitland Parker, 70, in the Walkley
Award-shortlisted documentary film Yurlu | Country, written, directed and produced by Yaara Bou Melhem.
“The government and miners gave each other the green light. They just went ahead and built the
infrastructure. They ignored us.” But it is the Banjima who pay the ultimate price.
