While we're getting plenty of rain along the coast, outback Queensland is getting drier and drier
SMALL towns in the states northwest are under threat of extinction as the worst drought on record combines with the mining downturn to prompt a generation to abandon their heritage and head for the coast.
The small towns dotting the map from Townsville to Mount Isa face unprecedented pressures as the rate of business failure accelerates.
Father Mick Lowcock, a long-serving Mount Isa priest who is acting Bishop of the sprawling Townsville Diocese, said the financial pressures on families in places including Julia Creek were unprecedented as community support systems collapsed.
People cant serve their community while their own spirits are low, they cant go on giving when their own problems are so dire, Father Lowcock said.
State Member for Mount Isa Robbie Katter is joining the federal independent Member for Kennedy Bob Katter on a tour of towns from Hughenden to Mount Isa to spotlight a problem they said had the potential to turn once-thriving communities into ghost towns.
The northwest is always mindful of towns such as Mary Kathleen, which 30 years ago had a population approaching 1000 and was now deserted.
FARMS: Drought masks an even bigger crisis
Rodger Jefferis, whose family has operated Elrose Station outside Cloncurry for more than a century, said the double whammy of the mining downturn and drought had created unprecedented hardship for families that worked the land.
Mr Jefferis, who also runs a property in Normanton, said he had never witnessed a drought so widespread across the north and northwest.
You cant find a paddock to agist cattle between here and the Queensland border, he said.
Rodger Jefferis, who operates Elrose Station outside Cloncurry, says you cant find a paddock to agist cattle between here and the Queensland border.Source: News Corp Australia
Robbie Katter said while the drought was devastating towns across his electorate, a range of State Government policy decisions in previous years were crushing small councils, which he described as the lifeblood of many communities.
Councils are still the biggest employer in many of these towns, excluding mining, but they are struggling with ever-widening responsibilities not matched by increased funding, he said.
Where once the State Government handled responsibilities such as health inspections on cafes, stock routes and even pools, it now falls to the councils.
Father Mick Lowcock says people cant serve their community while their own spirits are low.Source: News Corp Australia
Robbie Katter, in Julia Creek yesterday, said ratepayers in the tiny western town were even subsidising the employment of a nurse at the local health clinic.
