Australia’s Mining Bust Turns Towns Into Ghost Towns; Expect Interest Rate “Shock And Awe”

As Australia’s mining boom turns to bust, Towns are Dying the Death of a Thousand Cuts as Miners Leave in Droves. 

 Locals say the main street of Dalby resembles a ghost town these days – a sad indication of a mining boom ending too soon for some.

Things have taken a turn for the worse since the glory days of the mining construction boom, with companies responding to falling commodity prices by pulling the plug on new projects and laying off workers across the Surat Basin.

The increasing exodus of workers, investment and money from the mining towns has left houses empty and businesses struggling, with many of those left behind wondering what to do next.

Di Reilly, owner of Mary’s Commercial Hotel on Dalby’s Cunningham St, said much had changed since 2013 when thirsty miners packed into the pub every Friday and Saturday night.

“We used to open the old bar up and the whole place would be chock-a-block,” she said.

Things were going so well that Ms Reilly began a revamp of the pub before the numbers tapered off, leaving her with a half-renovated bar and plummeting income.

The old bar now sits unrenovated and empty, a dusty reminder of plans gone awry.

“They were saying it was going to last 10 years but it hasn’t,” she said.

“I was going to do the whole pub up, so I was banking on it that they would be here a little longer than they were, but it just stopped all of a sudden. It just got cut off.”

The impact on her bottom line has been astonishing, with turnover last December down $100,000, slashed in half from the previous year.

Down the road, electronics retailer Colin Fountain speaks of the boom in the past tense.

“I’ve definitely noticed a slowdown. Sometimes when you look down the street you’d think you were in a ghost town,” he said.

Further west in Chinchilla, the effects of the mining construction boom have mainly been felt in the real estate sector, where rents and house prices doubled from cashed-up workers arriving in the town.

Long-term residents said many pensioners had been forced to leave because of high housing prices and now that prices had fallen some weren’t coming back.

One real estate agent said “a hell of a lot” of property was on the market – about 400 houses were for rent or sale and buyers were scarce.