November 8, 2016
by Dafyd Martindale
The South Burnett’s regional economy is of concern to just about all of us.
It affects our employment and the future employment of our children, the price of our homes, the facilities we can enjoy and the lifestyle we live.
A growing economy means new jobs, a robust real estate market and a pretty good way of life.
And a shrinking one, of course, means just the opposite.
So new figures released by the Queensland Resources Council which show the South Burnett is the mining capital of the Wide Bay-Burnett should give everyone genuine cause for concern.
These figures, if accurate, show that in 2015-16 the resources sector contributed 26 per cent to our gross regional product and propped up 23 per cent of our local employment market.
Why is that concerning?
It is concerning because the resources sector in our region is represented by just one coal mine at Meandu and the power stations at Tarong, and they are both slated to close down between 2030 and 2035 … which is only 14 to 19 years away.
If almost one quarter of our workforce rely on Tarong and Meandu – directly or indirectly – for their jobs, what are we going to replace those jobs with?
We need to find thousands of jobs in the next 14 years – and a good swag of them high-paying ones – just to stay afloat.
This is a looming problem no-one seems to want to look at, but it is one that all levels of Government need to start taking seriously.
If they don’t, we may see a situation like last week’s announced closure of the Hazelwood Power Station in Victoria’s Latrobe Valley, which will throw 750 people out of a job and has already plunged the towns that depended on it into a full-blown recession.
The Federal and Victorian governments will now pour more than $40 million apiece into assistance packages because neither, it seems, thought very deeply about the future until it arrived.
The South Burnett needs and deserves a bright future, so one of the first things we suggest is that we start diversifying away from our reliance on a coal mine and a power station complex into other, more sustainable enterprises.
What’s the longer term answer?
We don’t know.
But we do know there has to be one out there somewhere, if our governments start looking right now.
- Related article: South Burnett Is Wide Bay’s Mining Capital
