Normal text size Larger text size Very large text size The East Newman home looks like a war zone. Faeces, used condoms and dirty underwear litter the kitchen. In one of the rooms, a tabletop acting as a makeshift bed rests on the floor amid a sea of broken glass. The stink of squalor fills the air. The home’s dining room is covered in chunks of plaster, rubbish and yellow insulation. In the corner, a broken air-conditioner hangs from the wall. Vandals have even gone to the effort of smashing the ceiling, pulling out the blinds, drawing graffiti on the walls and blocking the home’s toilet. The verge and backyard are full of empty ‘goon’ bags, bottles and cans, with a makeshift bong sitting just by the front door. More than 500 vacant homes in town, most owned by mining giant BHP, have become a magnet for squatting, anti-social behaviour and drug use. Credit:Marta Pascual Juanola The next-door neighbour tells me “kids” vandalised the home two years ago. “I chased them out of the house,” he says, shrugging his shoulders.“You get used to it.”


Almost a quarter of Newman’s housing stock is currently sitting empty, giving WA’s once-thriving mining centre the appearance of a ghost town. Formerly used as BHP staff accommodation during the state’s mining boom, the homes were slowly vacated as the company reduced operations in the region. Now, as the town struggles to retain its workforce and tackle underlying social issues, the properties have become a crime hotspot, further stigmatising the suburb of East Newman. Some have likened the current situation to the climax of unrest that sparked the 2016 Kalgoorlie riots, calling for action to be taken to avoid another clash in WA’s regional centres. For local business owner Quentin Larose, the empty homes are “open doors” for anyone seeking to wreak havoc, further contributing to the town’s rising crime rates and deterring people from moving there. The French national moved to Newman with his sister six years ago, chasing an opportunity to start a business in a small outback community. Empty homes are littered with empty cans and bottles, and drug paraphernalia. Credit:Marta Pascual Juanola


The pair has been successfully running a gardening and maintenance business in town for the past four years, but are currently struggling to find suitable workers to join the team. “It’s advertised everywhere, it’s just very hard to get people up here, or they come stay for two weeks and then they leave,” Mr Larose says. “I guess the conditions in town are pretty hard.” Mr Larose says they are not the only ones struggling to find suitable workers; the town’s medical centre also relies on fly-in, fly-out doctors to provide its service. “It’s the same for everybody, I can’t get a proper gardener, and they can’t get a proper doctor,” Mr Larose says. He believes harsh weather conditions, rising crime rates, a shortage of schooling options for high school students and limited medical services are all contributing. “You find that a lot of people stay around when the kids are young, because Newman is a beautiful town for that, but when the kids hit high school then often mum and dad decide to move down to Perth to get better education for the kids,” he says.


Mr Larose is fed up with the situation. He says he loves the town, but he struggles to see a bright future beyond mining camps and fly-in, fly-out workers. The smashed backyard fence of one of East Newman's multiple vacant homes. Credit:Marta Pascual Juanola “Newman is about work, make a plan out of it – five, seven, ten years – give what you want to give to Newman while you’re here, take back what you can, because obviously we are all here for the money,” he says. “As long as the plane tickets will be so cheap for the mining companies it won’t make sense for [them] to actually attract people in town.” BHP recently announced a new voluntary drive-in, drive-out program aimed at encouraging workers to live in Newman and commute to work instead of living at the company’s worker camps. They have also committed to closing down Kurra Village, a camp for 500 Mount Whaleback mine workers in the outskirts of Newman, later this year, despite having a lease until 2020.


In a bid to address the vacant housing issue, the mining giant also announced their plans to work with the Shire of East Pilbara to use some of the vacant properties in East Newman to house former Parnpajinya residents following the closure of the town-based reserve. However, the initiative has been slammed by Nationals leader Mia Davies, who says a voluntary program isn’t enough to normalise a town in crisis. Boarded up homes outnumber occupied properties in some areas of Newman. Credit:Marta Pascual Juanola “I think BHP as a significant landowner and homeowner and a presence in town has the responsibility to make sure that they are contributing to the community in a positive way. Certainly the empty houses that are lining a number of local streets are part of the problem in some of the social issues the community is dealing with,” Ms Davies says. “What they are actually doing is transitioning into two new camps, they’ve bought a caravan park and they have another camp that they are refurbishing and they’ve got an organic and voluntary program for residential workforce. “It is not a commitment to Newman that we are supportive of, and we think they need to do better and we think the government needs to put more pressure on them to actually make sure they are contributing to the community in a positive way.” Meanwhile, for those in the lower socio-economic bracket, securing a home in a town where a quarter of the housing stock remains empty has become a struggle.

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