Former Mines Minister, Mount Isa MLA and Mayor Tony McGrady said the 1964 industrial dispute that halted operations at Mount Isa Mines galvanised a community that was made up of a group of disparate nationalities at the time.
It’s the 60th anniversary of the dispute where mine owners locked the gates for eight months over issues to do with piece rates and bonuses and working conditions, among others.
Mr McGrady arrived in Mount Isa that year as an 18-year-old immigrant from Liverpool.
He joined other ‘New Australians’ as they were referred to at the time in the single men’s quarters referred to as BSD, or Base Supply Depot, which became a melting pot, he said.
“You had a large Finnish community, you had an Italian community, you had an Irish community, and these people didn’t resort to their own national communities.
“They were Mount Isans first, second, and third. And so you had this unity … and to some extent it still exists, plus the fact that it’s ‘Mount Isa versus the world’.
“We are a remote community, we suffer, but at the same time, it has improved so much since that dispute.
“It’s not the place it used to be. We are no longer regarded as some outlying mining place. We are now seen as one of the great mining communities of the world.”
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The average income for miners at the time was more than twice that of the rest of the country, Mr McGrady said.
“Now, I remember when I arrived in Sydney, the basic wage was 15 pounds a week, 15 pounds a week, and Mount Isa Mines were paying a minimum of 35 pound a week,” he said.
The dispute which saw workers locked out of the mine for eight months over 1964-65 was the culmination of years of tensions. One publication referred to the lack of available hot water for showers as a trigger.
The community was under pressure during the dispute and took measures to ensure solidarity, Mr McGrady said.
“Because to some extent there was a split and people who were used to getting good wage packets all of a sudden are not getting any regular income.
“What the unions did was to hold a meeting of the community once a week where the wives would come along and they’d get a report that the Star Theatre would be full of the whole of the community and they’d get a rundown.
“It wasn’t just dad not going to work, mom and the family were involved, which was a brilliant tactic industrially as far as the unions were concerned.”
He was proud of where the community was today, Mr McGrady said.
“I’ve travelled the world as a Minister for Mines and Energy. I’ve been in the boardrooms of Tokyo and other places and yet people recognise Mount Isa as being the premier mining community in the world, regardless of what they tell you they do.
“And in most of the boardrooms that I went into, there were portraits of leading figures from MIM like Sir George Fisher, people like him.
“So Mount Isa is not just some remote community, it plays big time on the world stage as regards mining is concerned.”
The story of the dispute inspired a Queensland Music Festival musical production titled Red Cap, which premiered at the Mount Isa Civic Centre on July 11, 2007.
