WA’s mining boom, its growth and reports of its looming demise, whether true or not make front page news media and are picked up as the news of the day off the newswire by the majority of the news media however the record homelessness rates in the Kimberley and the Pilbara – the heart of the mining boom – barely rate a mention.
Firstly, the Access Economics report that the mining boom will trough as a result of state royalties and various taxes is tenuous and reminiscent of Karl Marx’s Das Kapital assertions that demand will be outstripped by supply and increasing capital cost pressures however we believe that the bubble economy that protects the high margins of return for the mining industry will continue for decades and that supply will be met by demand.
More importantly, WA has the highest homelessness rates in Australia – in 2006 WA reported 69 per 10,000 homeless compared to 42 homeless per 10,000 for Victoria and NSW. WA’s homeless peoples have increased in numbers and in terms of chronic and acute homelessness. The State Government has done very little to address homelessness in WA.
The Pilbara has one of Australia’s worst homelessness rates – 170 per 10,000 and yet Mrs Rinehart’s Roy Hill mine is seeking to temporarily import 1,700 international workers – this evidences that contextually very little has been developed in the Pilbara to train and employ local peoples, Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal. It evidences that little community infrastructure has been invested in to underlay hopes for local peoples.
If the homelessness rates in the Pilbara are shocking, then the homelessness rates in the Kimberley are unbelievable – 7% of the Kimberley population is homeless and in fact it could be up to 10% of the total 41,000 Kimberley population. In 2006, 638 per 10,000 were reported as homeless and this could now be as high as 1,000 people per 10,000. Promised hostels in Broome have not been built, housing in Derby, Broome, One Mile Community, Kennedy Hill, Kununurra and Wyndham and nearby communities have not been built. People have not been invested in while both the Kimberley (and the Pilbara – let us consider Roebourne and so on) are tourist meccas and resource rich, driving the mining boom in Australia.
If Access Economics is correct that there is a looming end in sight to WA’s mining boom then the fact that nothing has been done for the socio-economically poor in the Kimberley and the Pilbara concludes desperate and horrific times ahead for these and more peoples.
The homelessness rate in the Kimberley is the worst in Australia, the worst in the developed world.
Human Rights Alliance spokesperson, Gerry Georgatos
PhD researcher
0430 657 309
gerry_georgatos@yahoo.com.au
info@humanrightsalliance.org
LINKS:
http://www.indymedia.org.au/2012/05/17/the-kimberleys-homelessness-rates...
http://humanrightsalliance.org/?page_id=208
http://humanrightsalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/nit01.pdf
PART ONE
http://humanrightsalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/nit02.pdf
PART TWO
http://www.nit.com.au/news/1204-barnetts-legacy-the-kimberleys-homeless-...
Barnett's legacy: The Kimberley's homeless increase in mine rich WA
http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;page=1;qu...