Cane and Coal

Fig. 01 Welcome to Mackay sign.

Whilst it is boundaries that are through to delineate property, these things do not adequately define the paradigms by which property becomes nebulous, where it stores value or rises and falls by the crest of booms and busts. I have experienced this paradigm through my hometown of Mackay in North Queensland, a mostly isolated town that has two main exports, cane and coal. The mining boom brought boats, motorbikes, and jet skis and an inhabited civic interior, while the bust doubled unemployment and decreased property prices by up to 65%, leaving the city largely vacant.

A two minute walk down Mackay’s “CBD” or it’s equivalent of a high street shows a largely unihabited interior, majority of shops are closed - a consequence of high unemployment and declining property prices. While statistics show that North/Regional Queensland is moving past its year long down turn, walking through the CBD you wouldn’t be able to tell.

Fig. 03 There are 24 coal mines in the Isaac Regional Council area nad they produce about half of Queensland’s coal exports.

Fig. 04 Coal exports are loaded up at Hay Point just south of Mackay.

Dubbed “The Quiet Australian’s” by Scott Morrison after a sweeping win in Rural and Regional Queensland last federal election, Mackay’s hesitancy to move away from fossil fuels could partially be blamed for the said property bust. The federal MP for the Division of Dawson is George Christensen, widely known for his social conservatism, his climate change denial and his promulgation of misinformation about COVID-19.