Image makeover for Kalgoorlie

Guest columnist Sharon Kemp, a former reporter with The Kalgoorlie Miner, The West Australian and The Age, will   provide WA Business News readers with a regular glimpse of life in the mining community from her home base in the Goldfields.

Kalgoorlie is getting a playground that matches its maturity – and reveals a change in the mining town many outsiders might not expect.

Funding has been found for an $18 million, 27-hole grass golf course that will be designed by former professional golfer and architect of The Vines, Graham Marsh.

Perhaps less likely to see the light of day is a recreational lake north of the city, a proposal used as election bait by the successful Kalgoorlie candidate, Matt Birney.

These visions of luxury pastimes reflect an identity crisis in Kalgoorlie highlighted by the impact of the mining boom.

Of course, there is all the excitement associated with a simultaneous upswing in mining and, along with it, tourism.

But Kalgoorlie, like other mining centres, is suffering a major labour shortage and local politicians say that only good recreational, sporting and health facilities will lure workers to Kalgoorlie in the absence of legislative change that outlaws fly-in, fly-out operations.

On the other hand, many among the increasing number of tourists to the Goldfields centre want to see a caricature of the city complete with skimpies, brothels, pubs, swirling dust, a bit of mining and streets paved with gold.

While the demands of tourists and residents are not necessarily at odds, there is an irony that underlies the tension to please both markets. It is that the truth behind Kalgoorlie’s image as a beer-swilling, brothel-filled wild west is about as thin these days as a skimpie’s outfit.

The hotel business is tough in Kalgoorlie, just ask the pub and club owners who are finding lots of competition in what has become an increasingly family-oriented city.

Early risers these days are more likely to dodge pram pushers outside Hannan Street’s hotels than miners swaggering home from end-of-night-shift celebrations.

The Grand Hotel on Hannan Street, billed as the city’s oldest, collapsed into administration last year despite, or should I say after, introducing male skimpies. The paperwork is under way for the pub to reopen.

Someone who knows this business intimately is Ashok Parekh, the owner of the Exchange and the Palace, the city’s most famous pubs, which occupy two of four corners of the landmark Hannan Street intersection.

Mr Parekh paid $2 million for the Palace Hotel last year and says he will “build it up” from a series of losses over the past seven years.

Meanwhile on a third corner the Australia Hotel remains up for sale. The vendor says the site needs an owner who will rejuvenate the historic premises. Locals wonder if a new owner will decide to opt to satisfy the curiosity of tourists or try to meet local demands for modern eateries and coffee shops.

Another area where competition is getting stiffer as business flags is in Kalgoorlie’s infamous Hay Street. These days, two of the three pleasure houses that remain in operation hold tours. It’s debatable whether revenue from the merely curious makes up for lost business from the more active visitors; or maybe the former is scaring away the latter.

Nowhere is this more ‘respectable’ Kalgoorlie obvious than at the annual mining gabfest, Diggers & Dealers.

The conference organisers have already dumped skimpies and talk is the host hotel, the Palace, is unlikely to reinstate the entertainment for delegates.

While they can always cross the road to the Exchange for a thrill, it is no longer skimpies that will encourage delegates to spend the extra night after Diggers & Dealers in Kalgoorlie, says D&D conference organiser and city councillor, Graham Thomson.

Mr Thomson and others argue that a world-class golf course and four-and-a-half star resort, due for completion in early 2007, will excite delegates and other business visitors.

They may have a point.

Tourism WA figures show that, during 2002-2003, 41 per cent of domestic visitors were in Kalgoorlie for business, 69 per cent were male and 42 per cent were aged between 25 and 44 – the prime golfing demographic.

So, a golf course could prove to be a winner with both locals and tourists.

Well, that is a step in the right direction but the big question remains whether Kalgoorlie can create a leisure and entertainment industry that sustains the local economy during mining busts, as well as booms.

Civic leaders should direct the flow of boom-time money towards pleasing locals and creating a pool of viable mining labour that will improve producers’ profitability and extend mine life.