No light on the Hill... On the throbbing background of Australia’s greatest mining town

Ian Plimer I 30 November 2024 I Spectator Australia

It was a huge cultural shock to move as a new graduate from the upper north shore of Sydney to Broken Hill in 1968. The locals were proud miners, staunch unionists and fiercely independent in an isolated part of the country neglected by the capital cities. Nothing changes. It then was a union town that exerted huge power in the New South Wales Labor movement.

Geoffrey Blainey showed that the enormous wealth generated from the world’s largest silver-lead-zinc ore body led to the industrialisation of Australia because, unlike Ballarat, Bendigo, Mt Morgan, Mt Lyell, Mount Isa and Kalgoorlie, the shareholders of Broken Hill mining companies were Australians (mainly from Adelaide, Melbourne and Silverton).

Bitter strikes such as the 18-month-long 1919 to 1920 ‘spud-and-onions’ strike led to collective bargaining, occupational health and safety and a minimum wage, all now enshrined in legislation. There was a Lead Bonus as compensation for health damage from ingesting lead. There were many unions, each of which had its own brass band, and the bandsmen of Broken Hill erected a memorial to the bandsmen on the Titanic who died while entertaining capitalist toffs.

Unions were dominated by Irish Catholics, benevolent societies by Cornish Wesleyans and Methodists, and mine management by Anglicans. There are also other Protestant churches, a synagogue and a mosque at the former Afghan cameleer camp. Before Gallipoli, there was an attack on a picnic train on 1 January, 1915, by Muslims flying a Turkish flag. Three people were killed, a fourth was killed in a gun battle between a local militia and the two ‘Turks’ who were also killed in the gun battle. These were the only fatalities on Australian soil during the first world war. The day was completed by the militia when they burned down the German Club just for good measure.

When I came to Broken Hill, there were over thirty pubs and sixteen licensed clubs which were egalitarian. There was a local dialect using many old-fashioned Cornish mining terms. Each pub had its own SP bookie, the unions ran the two-up school and each week the President of the Barrier Industrial Council, the Manager of the Mine Managers’ Association, the Inspector of Police and the Mayor would sit undisturbed and drinking in the corner of a club organising the affairs of the City.

Anyone who stepped out of line, including police, were black banned and would not be served food or fuel. Young tearaways were given a clip around the ear by the Inspector and the father and mother would be given a dressing-down by the town leaders. To get a job in the mines or an unskilled job in town, one had to have been born in town, lived there more than seven years or married a local. There were mine? jobs (especially apprenticeships) for young people who consequently did not leave town. Women worked and then when they married they had to give their job to a single woman. Husbands had to be paid enough to support a wife and family. There was no drifting population, so typical of mining towns.

Miners were given two pay packets. The wage was put on the kitchen table for the wife to run the house, the Lead Bonus was secret men’s business and was used for gambling, drinking and investing. If Fred had spent his Lead Bonus, then all the bookies and pubs were instructed that if they gave credit to Fred, they would be black banned. Fred had to wait ‘til his next Lead Bonus before he could drink and gamble. This was an attempt to stop women and children living in poverty.

Union membership was compulsory. The town had a morning daily newspaper owned by the unions (Barrier Daily Truth) which every unionist received. If there were four unionists in the one household, then four papers were thrown over the front fence. The afternoon daily, the Barrier Miner, was owned by that filthy fat capitalist pig Rupert Murdoch and, because of this, it was eventually made extinct by the unions.

Charities would advertise a ‘games night’ in the papers. To organise a ‘games night’ a booking had to be made with the licencing sergeant and these illegal gambling nights harvested the Lead Bonus thereby keeping money in the town. ‘Games nights’ would be raided by the police, the organisers were quietly asked if there was someone from out of town cleaning up and, if so, they would be run out of town for illegal gambling. I know. I used to organise such ‘games nights’ for a charity. This was stopped by Premier Askin in the mid-1970s who perhaps objected to competition. It has all changed now but I’m not sure that this is a good thing.

The town electricity supply was from diesel generators at the Galena Street power station. The three mines generated electricity and compressed air from diesel fuel at the Central Power Station (CPS) in South Broken Hill and the throbbing background noise and vibration of the CPS Sulzer diesel motors was constant. The CPS generated power at a different frequency from Galena Street hence any tools stolen from the mines would not work using the town grid.

At midnight, 8 a.m., midday, 4 p.m. and 8 p.m. the whole town would hear the hooters from the mines at shift changes; many people did not have watches because they were not needed and the whole town would rattle when underground firing took place. It still does at 6.40 p.m.

People in Broken Hill are used to blackouts which frequently occur when cockatoos fry themselves and short out the town after stripping insulation off wiring at the substation.

Mines need large amounts of power 24/7 for hauling, ventilation, pumping, crushing and grinding. Diesel power became too expensive and a 300-kilometre-long high-voltage power line using Victorian brown coal was built 30 years ago from Wentworth to Broken Hill.

More recently, a wind industrial complex west of Broken Hill and a solar factory on the edge of town were constructed. The NSW government spent over $100m of taxpayers’ funds on the solar complex. These ‘renewables’ provide no power to Broken Hill and much of the electricity is wastefully earthed because it is generated at times of low demand and cannot be used.

In October, a tornado destroyed ungalavanised stanchions carrying the high voltage power lines. This was no surprise as desert areas have occasional tornadoes, floods and hailstorms. Maybe the stanchions were under-designed, built on the cheap or poorly maintained?? Just one of the town’s emergency diesel generators was operational, the backup battery power system had been drained by the cities and there was not an electron to be found. The mines closed, hundreds were out of work, all refrigerated foods were destroyed and, once the power was connected, load-shedding took place. After 141 years of continuous mining, this could be the straw that breaks the camel’s back for the mining companies who now extract deep low-grade remnant ore at high cost.

This would not have happened if Broken Hill had its own small modular nuclear reactor which could sit just out of town or in one of the deep abandoned underground mines.

You know it’s common sense.

Author: Ian Plimer