Resources communities are first about communities and then about resources.

That comes from economic development agency The Next Economy which has worked in regions as diverse as the coalfields, Gladstone and Mount Isa to help plan more diverse economies.

The Next Economy recently developed the Mount Isa Future Ready Economy Roadmap in response to Glencore’s staged closure of Mount Isa Copper Operations starting in the new financial year.

Regional centres like Mount Isa and the now redundant Mary Kathleen in the north, as well as Dysart and Blackwater among others in Central Queensland, were built by companies as dormitory suburbs.

Main image: Moranbah was created in 1971 by the Utah Development Company, which then owned Goonyella Mine and later the Peak Downs Mine.

Next-generation mining would operate in a whole new investment environment, The Next Economy chief executive officer Amanda Cahill said.

“There are big questions around who has to invest in the town and the liveability of the town moving forward because there’s not the same responsibility on the company anymore to do that investment. 

“We’ve got different workforce structures now. There’s big question about if people lose their job and are they going to be replaced by fly in-fly out workers or AI or automation? So what does a local workforce look like in this context? 

“And also the infrastructure … there’s going to be a need for processing of other minerals. There is some infrastructure here, it needs to be upgraded and updated. 

“Who’s going to pay for that? And what’s the financial mechanisms around say multiple junior companies all using the same shared infrastructure.”

The standard of living would need to meet different expectations to attract mining families, Dr Cahill said.

“They actually need to be places where people are going to be able to live and work. So we often talk about the social services as this add-on, like you invest in the industry first to get the jobs and the rest follows. 

“But I think we’re seeing this in a lot of different places. It’s like, well, if there are no houses for people to live in, you’re not going to get workers living here. If you don’t have the services that people need, you’re not going to get families living here. 

“And even if you can still get the investment to develop the resource, but you haven’t invested in the house, in the health services, the aged care, you actually are going to see increasing disparity of wealth and wellbeing between different people in that community. 

“And that leads to a whole lot of other problems that are going to cost a lot more down the track.

“So what’s been interesting about in the writing this roadmap and the feedback that we were getting from people is you actually need to invest in the place, that is your economic foundation, then the investment you need to develop the resources not the other way around.”

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