Currently in Australia there are more than 95,000 mine sites, 89% of which are inactive. Strategies for mining land and asset re-use are therefore economically and socially important but there is no single agreed approach to best practice in mine closures, or the planned transition of a mining economy to other activities. The small community of Coolgardie in the Western Australian Goldfields has hosted mining for 135 years and experienced the often brutal boom and bust lifecycle of the sector. Led by the local government authority, the Shire is seeking to develop a number of initiatives to build economic and social resilience, shoring up a corpus of funds to build long term resilience, through own-source revenue activities, in a quest to future proof itself and reorient the local economy to one that is less dependent on government grants and mining activities.
This paper will commence by introducing the Shire of Coolgardie and its current and historic socio-economic status, which at times has been tenuous. Following this is a review of the role of local government in a remote setting and the difficulties in achieving own-source revenue. Some of the initiatives taken by the shire and its constituents in the quest to build economic and social resilience are then outlined.
The paper concludes with lessons learned, including consideration of the replicability of the successful initiatives for other local governments elsewhere in Australia, and an assessment of the sustainability of the initiatives.