Market town to mining town : resource development, infrastructure costs and local government in Singleton, Australia

Abstract

Who rneets the infrastructure costs when resource development of world-ranking magnitude occurs in a closely settled part of Australia? A comparable question has been answered in the past decade or so for remote, or thinly settled parts of Western Australia and Queensland. New mining ventures in the Pilbara for example, have required that infrastructure, including new towns, railways and port facilities, be built largely at company expense. But where towns and urban services already exist, and have existed for over 100 years, the situation is radically different, as this thesis is concerned to demonstrate. Since the mid 1970s Singleton, New South Wales, (population 8,000 in 1976) has been in the centre of one of the world's largest new coal mining areas. Singleton Shire Council was suddenly required to provide services for a much larger population, helped only by an assurance of support from the New South Wales state government. As the pace of development quickened, the potential crisis for Singleton (in provision of roads, water supply and other urban services) became a real crisis requiring action. The early chapters of this thesis demonstrate the unequal bargaining strengths of the corporate and government sectors which led to the 'infrastructure crisis' in Singleton. The private sector quickly established joint ventures to combine the resources of the largest Australian corporations (BHP, CRA and CSH) with overseas interests. By 1982, 95 per cent of the export potential of the Upper Hunter was integrated into corporate families extending from the transnational oil companies, Shell and British Petroleum (Chapter 1). Investment in mines stimulated a rapid increase in production (Chapter 2), but the state government's response of forming many committees to recommend policy was not followed with programs to meet its stated responsibility for infrastructure provision (Chapters 1 and 3). Population projections by the state government underestimated growth rates (Chapter 2) and the slow response to infrastructure needs caused shortages and protests in Singleton (Chapter 3). Two new authorities were formed in 1980 to resolve immediate problems, but this 'crisis management' response failed to meet the objective of of overall infrastructure co-ordination. For mining projects in the Hunter Valley the state government did not require comprehensive contributions to urban infrastructure until 1982 (Chapter 6). This belated response left local government alone to face the needs of the 1976-81 growth period. Singleton Shire Council met the infrastructure demands of coal-based growth by increasing expenditure by 27.2 million dollars beyond that of similar rural shires in the 1976-81 period (Chapter 4). Rates provided the largest contribution from the local community towards infrastructure costs, but the incidence of rates between 1976 and 1981 was much higher in older residential areas where many long-term residents lived, than in new suburbs inhabited mainly by resource sector employees (Chapter 5). Rather than remain heavily dependent upon t h i s inequitable revenue source, Singleton Shire Council became the largest land developer in the Shire. New subdivisions were serviced using funds generated within the Development Fund and the profits from land sales were used to finance other infrastructure needs in the community. This entrepreneurial solution to infrastructure financing at Singleton may help to answer similar problems posed by development elsewhere.