Big Pilbara city ‘silly talk’: Gray

CALLS for a major population centre in the state’s north-west have failed to find a sympathetic ear from the man charged with responsibility for the region by the federal government.

Parliamentary Secretary for Western and Northern Australia, Gary Gray, dismissed the possibility of a huge metropolis in the Pilbara at a recent event held by the John Curtin Institute for Public Policy.

There has been growing talk that the north-west of Western Australia needs a big centre to balance Australia’s population distribution and properly service a region that generates much of the wealth.

Some in business and government circles talk of creating a city almost as big as Adelaide to capitalise on the dramatic growth in resources.

Others believe a more modest city of at least 50,000 people is needed, most likely a hub developed at Karratha where about 12,000 people currently live. Port Hedland has about 14,000 people.

“I know some have talked about a city of 1 million people,” Mr Gray said last week.

“Canberra has not even got 1 million people and it’s 100 years old.

“That anyone will be building a city of 1 million people; that is silly talk.”

However, Mr Gray backed the need for infrastructure and planning to deal with the growth needed to service development in the region.

The state government is expected to focus on developing more liveable cities in the area, offering high-rise developments and lifestyle assets such as marinas to make the Pilbara more attractive to skilled workers.

Mr Gray was clearly not supportive of what he dubbed Soviet-style central planning, preferring market solutions to issues in the region.

He was also a supportive of fly-in, fly-out as an answer to the region’s skills shortages, citing a town he visited in NSW where many of the residents flew to the Pilbara to work.

“That community in NSW is made wealthier and better for it,” Mr Gray said.