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Leigh Creek’s workers sign off forever

Tuesday, November 17, 2015 will stick in the minds of Leigh Creek residents for a long time.

Nov 17, 2015, updated Nov 17, 2015
The Leigh Creek coal train rushes through the township of Parachilna. Picture: John Noonan / AAP

The Leigh Creek coal train rushes through the township of Parachilna. Picture: John Noonan / AAP

Like so many other monumental events thrown at regional townships, today’s axing of 250 jobs at the Leigh Creek coalmine by Alinta Energy will be another calendar date circled red and solemnly commemorated for years to come.

After more than 100 years of mineral production and sustained employment for the Leigh Creek community, population 549, the coalmine that has shaped the town’s identity will shut down production today.

Alinta could sustain the bleeding losses no more.

“Throughout the four and half years that we have been running the business we have investigated all possibilities to find a viable economic solution for its continued operation,” Alinta chief executive officer Jeff Dimery said during the Flinders closure announcement in June.

“During this period the company has incurred operating losses in the vicinity of $100 million whilst at the same time investing an additional $200 million to extend the operating life of the Flinders business.”

South Australian politicians and plant management have publicly mourned the closure, a community felled by a massive loss of jobs and announced plans to get them through.

Everyone’s “thoughts” are with them.

“Our thoughts today are with the workers, families, and communities impacted by Alinta Energy’s closure of the Leigh Creek coal mine,” says Minister for Manufacturing and Innovation Kyam Maher today.

That’s what happens when a town is gutted by the closure of an entire industry.

Almost 300 kilometres south down the road at Whyalla, the same scene is being played out as 250 Arrium workers face the same redundancy process as their Alinta colleagues after being handed their “pink slips” yesterday.

Today at 3.30pm the remaining 162 production workers of Leigh Creek coalmine will punch out for the last time and gather for a barbecue and beer to clink the end of an era.

One week ago, about 80 of their workmates finished up with little public fanfare.

The operations will not entirely shut down for a few years. The final date is still being determined through environmental planning with Alinta and the State Government.

For the next few months until the Port Augusta power station too shuts down, about 35 workers will remain on site to feed coal to the station via rail.

Leigh Creek

Leigh Creek

All up, about 440 workers will have lost their jobs in Leigh Creek and Port Augusta.

These job losses, along with those at Arrium and Santos and the long awaited Holden closure, comes when South Australia, with 7.5 per cent of its population out of work, holds the highest unemployment rate in the country

And that measure records the people who are bothering to look for work and not those who have given up.

The Leigh Creek support packages and government assistance have kicked into gear and guidance is being offered in financial management and career options.

The closure has prompted the government to form a committee headed by Rann era Education Minister Jane Lomax-Smith to investigate viable opportunities – such as tourism – to keep the town running.

State Treasurer Tom Koutsantonis says he recognises the skills of Leigh Creek’s redundant workforce and is looking for ways to use them to get Leigh Creek and the state through the “perfect storm”.

“Well a large number of those Leigh Creek employees will come back to Government but a large number of them will lose their job and it is very, very sad but they are highly skilled workers … and they have the ability to transfer a lot of that know how that they have to other industries,” he told 891 ABC on Tuesday.

Redundant workers will be allowed to remain in their houses for another two years – in the past, workers had two weeks to vacate if they left employment at the coalmine.

The Alinta closure is a sign of the environmental times. Coal is no longer cool – despite the lobbying efforts of the Minerals Council.

Even one of the state’s most vocal unions, ASU, acknowledges coalmines are going the way of the dinosaur.

Alinta is penned in to remain in the town until at least 2018 but after that, it’s not certain who will take responsibility for running the community.

For the past five years, Alinta – following other mining companies – has played the role of council, picking up rubbish and tending to the town’s municipal needs.

Leigh Creek is a town that was created to feed the mine.

But like all purpose-built towns, it somehow becomes a community and people feel connected to the region. It will be hard to leave or shut down and erase like some other purpose-built towns before it.

Purpose-built towns have been a part of mining since the mid 19th century.

It was a delicate three-way balancing act – the mine could not survive without the workers and the workers could not survive without the town.

Many remain purely built to feed the mines and close when their primary source of employment has shut.

Some have shaken off the mine-hug shackles and, like Newman in Western Australia and Mount Isa in Queensland, flourished into communities.

Some of Australia’s earliest purpose built mining towns, originally called company towns, were built in SA.

Kooringa was established in 1845 by the South Australian Mining Association and the company had started to build cottages for its workers by 1849.

Moonta was a failed attempt in the 1860s to establish a workers’ town but the workers decided to build their own houses along streets they created themselves along the government-planned town.

Purpose-built housing by mining companies did not really take off until the 1920s when Mt Isa Mines in north Queensland and Electrolytic Zinc Company in Tasmania began building dwellings and facilities for their workers.

The busiest period was from 1960 to the mid 80s when 25 new mining communities sprung up around Australia.

In Western Australia Tom Price, Newman and Paraburdoo were built and Moranbah, Dysart and Middlemount in Queensland are the results of the push and were called closed towns – the mine had full control and responsibility over all aspects of the town.

According to a submission to the Standing Committee on Regional Australia’s investigation into mining towns, WA Local Government Association figures showed FIFO employee numbers in WA had grown 400 per cent over the past 20 years.

There had been a shift in accommodation and mining companies had moved away from building purpose-built towns, rather creating temporary villages that could be easily dismantled once the minerals ran out.

The Fly-in Fly-out phenomenon, where workers lived at the homes scattered all around Australia, some overseas, and would fly in for work periods of up to six weeks, also impacted on already established mining towns.

Any given day there would be a sea of fluorescent orange carpeting the boarding areas of airports in the west outnumbering suits and ties as FIFO workers headed off for their next mining stint.

Bunked up in purpose built and quite well stocked state-of-the art camps build by mining giants, FIFO workers had no need to mingle in town, engage with the community or be part of the cricket or footy club – they wouldn’t be there for most of the games.

As time went on mining companies handed over some towns to local and state governments with strong connections and input from the mining companies.

It was an issue not lost of the big miners who employed community engagement officers, invested millions upon millions of dollars in townships to try to close the gap.

Now these townships have become sleepy hollows as plummeted iron ore prices strip them of workers and businesses linked to mining – which was nearly every one of them.

While Premier Jay Weather touted tourism as a business option for Leigh Creek as a knee-jerk reaction in the early days when news of the closure caught the State Government off guard, those promoting new technologies have zeroed in on the coalmine.

In October the Leigh Creek Energy Project proposed a new plant and new purpose for the old mine.

It would set up an in-situ seam gasification operation to extract natural gas for domestic and business supply.

The project, if approved, will ramp up in 2018 just when Alinta is expected to be signing off its responsibilities for the town.

The new operations are expected to employ up to 500 workers during the construction phase and then 150 during production.

This, at least, will give some hope to the 250 workers of the Leigh Creek coalmine who hung up their hard hats and punched out for the last time today.

 

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