Outback gold rush towns: The fragile legacy of relying on a single industry

In a tiny town of 450 people in the West Australian outback, the last remaining butcher offers a simple explanation for his lifestyle: "I am mad".

"You get up when it's dark, you get home when it's dark," he says.

"I haven't had a holiday, ah, it's … I can't remember when."

Mount Magnet's Kent Lucy says he's the last butcher in the whole region "and the best looking one for 500 miles" but his cheery demeanour hides a concern for the region's — and his own — future.

"Trying to get people into … the outback is hard. People don't want to come here, especially the young ones," he says.

Western Australia's Murchison region flourished during the gold rush of the late 1800s and early 1900s.

Towns including Austin, Lennonville, Day Dawn and Big Bell — all about 650 kilometres north-east of modern-day Perth — were bustling with shops, hospitals and cinemas with populations ranging from 500 to 1,000 residents.

But they had one problem.

They relied on a single industry to prop them up — gold.

As gold became harder to find and prices started to fall, these once-thriving towns gradually emptied, becoming ghost towns.

Meanwhile, other gold towns like Meekatharra, Cue, Mount Magnet and Yalgoo have survived, but for how long?

With an ageing population, declining infrastructure and lack of funding, there are fears some towns may go the same way.

Leveraging transport

Mount Magnet has hundreds of mining and haulage trucks running through it, creating a pressure point between large noisy trucks and those wanting a quiet place to live.

The Mount Magnet Shire is attempting to diversify by becoming a key transport hub, serving as a crucial junction for north-south and east-west trucking routes.

But shire chief executive Tralee Cable says the town's ageing infrastructure is struggling to cope with increased truck traffic, particularly in areas like accommodation and dining.

"There is much investment needed now for this community to be able to adequately support a heavily road-based transport system," she says.

Ms Cable says the shire is working through significant red tape to open an industrial estate, to allow haulage companies and truck drivers to see Mount Magnet as a viable changeover or rest stop.

"The shire anticipates development of this sort of support industry will bring much needed people back into this community, allowing us to once again thrive and prosper," she says.

Mr Lucy says he's got no plans to stop serving the community as it fights to survive, but his body is "falling apart".

He says finding staff has always been a struggle, despite the perks of the location.

"You've got the best skies at night, you've got the best days during the day and if you like going out in the bush, there's history everywhere," he says.

"It's bloody good fun here."

Enticing people to live in the outback

Eighty kilometres north in Cue, the population has dwindled from 10,000 at its peak in 1,900, to about 120 residents.

Shire president Les Price says shires need to be proactive in encouraging more families to move and live in outback towns.

"We are on a very low population base at the present stage," he says.

"We don't have a lot of those opportunities that a lot of other shire councils have, particularly those in the metropolitan area."

The shire applied to the Department of Infrastructure's Growing Regions Fund, seeking $2.15 million for a recreational project that would include a minigolf course, go-kart track, playground and yarning circle.

"This is based around trying to create an environment that will be encouraging for families to come and live in the town, to be engaged in the town and have something for their children to be part of," Mr Price says.

New residents could help Joyce Ramsay find a buyer for her Cue business, Queen of the Murchison Guest House.

She's selling due to health issues after a knee replacement.

"Because I am not able to maintain the same high standards of cleanliness and busy-ness that I wanted, I think it is time to pass the baton on to someone else," she says.

The shire has recently been notified it has not been successful in its recreational project funding application, but Mr Price says the team will look at other ways to still proceed by either scaling down or building in stages.

Professor Amanda Davies specialises in demography at the University of Western Australia.

She says one of the most significant challenges facing these remote towns is their historical reliance on one single industry and some communities just may not survive.

"It's very likely that some of the communities across regional Western Australia won't make it," Professor Davies says.

"There needs to be really active planning for the decline of those and a conversation about what's going to be lost in terms of history."

Battling businesses

In Meekatharra, another 115km up the Great Northern Highway, business owner Amy Dickens has stepped away from her popular bakery saying it is too difficult to run on her own.

She says staff are hard to find and the long hours producing and baking goods as well as serving customers had taken a toll.

The building is owned by the Meekatharra Shire, which has been actively looking for new tenants since Ms Dickens left.

"In a small town like Meekatharra, having a bakery definitely makes a difference," she says.

Three hours to the south west, Yalgoo was once home to 7,000 people with seven pubs.

Today, the town's population is around 120 with a further 400 living throughout the shire.

Stan Willock owns the town's last remaining pub, but has had it up for sale for the past three years.

"There's a couple of things that keep towns open," he says — a school and a pub.

"If the school shuts or numbers aren't good and if the pub shuts, I wouldn't hold much hope for the place.

"It's a place to come and meet and tell a few stories. If I close up, I know what will happen to the place. It will die."

The council has resolved to make a provision in its budget to consider making an offer to purchase the Yalgoo pub.

Millions of dollars out, what comes back?

Yalgoo Shire chief executive Ian Holland says an average of 500 trucks, carrying royalty-earning minerals, pass through Yalgoo daily.

Mr Holland says his shire receives less than 10 per cent of its annual funding from the state government.

But the shire regularly steps in to assist with what should be state issues including accommodation for state government employees like teachers, police and nurses.

"When the community has issues with telecommunications, health, utilities, disadvantaged youth and numerous other issues, they do not turn to state government departments," he says.

"Because they feel out of sight and out of mind or aren’t even aware that a particular service is the responsibility of a state government department."

Fly-in, fly-out mining has expanded throughout the region but the wealth doesn't always feed back into local towns.

Mr Holland says Yalgoo is fortunate to have two local mines contributing more to the maintenance and capital improvement of the shire than the WA government.

"I do not think it would be a stretch to work out if their mining royalties paid to the state are greater than the state's combined expenditure on police, education and health in the district," he says.

What will outback communities look like in 50 years?

Professor Davies says the key will be in balancing the preservation of history and culture with the need for economic adaptation in a rapidly changing world.

"Right across regional rural landscapes, throughout the developed world, we have similar trends occurring when towns were first established on a single industry, and that industry then shifts and changes," she says.

"These trends are evident across many rural communities, where once-thriving industries, such as mining or agriculture, have either become less labour-intensive or relocated entirely."

Professor Davies says diversification is crucial.

"If you can have two or three base industries in those inland communities, you then can have the other services and functions that are associated with that, such as education, health care, social services. But you need to have two or three, base underlying industries. And for that, some investment is required."

Professor Davies says the closure of essential services, such as schools and health facilities, is often the death knell for outback towns.