Moving on from the age of confrontation

After all, Australia is a massive continent and can easily accommodate many more farmers, graziers and miners than we now have if we give them the infrastructure to do it in a sustainable fashion.

Fly In — Fly Out

Whether it be true or false, one of the greatest criticisms of the mining industry is that it takes wealth from the geographical heart of Australia and leaves little behind that will improve the social fabric and economical life of the Inland. Nothing typifies this more than the fly in/fly out system of providing workers for their mines.

Recently, the situation became inflammatory when one mining company said that it would fly mineworkers in and out from Asia — but, as usual, there are many sides to every story. The miners will emphasise that workers, whether Australian or otherwise, do not want to live out in the Never Never, and so they have no option but to fly them in and out.

At the same time, social workers will tell you that the system is placing great stresses on the families back home who are left alone for long periods. In the final analysis, they don’t want to be separated. Nor do the workers really want to live in mining towns where the entertainment generally consists of having a few drinks with your mates.

Part of the solution lies in providing the social infrastructure needed to make mining communities liveable. This will require the building of quality housing which is air-conditioned and insect-proof, church schools, satellite university campuses, health services, social and cultural centres, sports facilities, good restaurants and theatres, etc.

In the long term, these good investments will prove to be less costly than that of fly in/fly out.

Not surprisingly, the way forward is a combination of consultation, co-operation and innovation — with no confrontation between miners and governments as to whose responsibility it is to create attractive inland towns and to plan for their future post-mining.

Commonsense tells us that there is no point in having a prosperous nation that has a diminishing quality of life and is socially dysfunctional.

Railways and Ports

It is time that we faced the fact that we do not have railways and ports that are of a quality that will sustain our mines (or any of our industries). We have to admit that they are outmoded and inefficient, thereby placing a heavy burden of cost on exporters.

The long term neglect of providing modern infrastructure for the Surat and Galilee Coal Basins in Queensland and the new food producing regions of northern Australia, particularly the Kimberley, is a prime example of this.