Broken Hill is an isolated mining city and Local Government Area (see City of Broken Hill) in the far west of outback New South Wales, Australia.  Broken Hill is located near the border with South Australia on the crossing of the Barrier Highway (#32) and the Silver City Highway, in the Barrier Range. It is 220 m (722 ft) above sea level, an average rainfall of 235 mm (9 in) and summer temperatures that reach well over 40 °C (104 °F). The closest major city is Adelaide, the capital of South Australia, which is more than 500 km (311 mi) to the southwest. Unlike the rest of New South Wales, Broken Hill (and the surrounding region) observes Australian Central Standard Time, UTC+9:30, a time zone it shares with South Australia and the Northern Territory.
Broken Hill has been called the The Silver City, the Oasis of the West, and the Capital of the Outback. Although over 1,100 km (684 mi) west of Sydney, and surrounded by semi-desert, the town still manages colourful park and garden displays, and offers a number of attractions. Broken Hill has been and still is a town dominated by the mining industry. The mines founded on the Broken Hill Ore Deposit - the world's richest lead-zinc ore body - have until recently provided the majority of direct employment and indirect employment in the city. In the past, before the 1940s, mining was achieved via hand with high labor utilisation rates and included horse-drawn carts underground. The advent of diesel powered mining equipment in the late 1940s and the move toward mechanised underground mining has resulted in lower labor utilisation per tonne of ore recovered, and this has seen the workforce in the mines shrink. Another factor in the shrinking of workforce size has been the consolidation of mining leases and operators, from several dozen to just two main operators at present. While the labor force has been in decline due to the low metal prices of the 1990s, which saw the failure of miner Pasminco Ltd, recent resurgence in metal prices has returned the sole existing operator, Perilya Limited, to profitability and prompted Consolidated Broken Hill Limited to advance development of the previously unmined Western Lodes and Centenary Lodes. This has involved creation of over 70 jobs during development and will see a second, new, milling operation built within the town. Although the mining industry is resurgent, labor utilisation will remain low. Due to its exposure to the vagaries of the mining industry, and because of a swiftly shrinking population, similar to other rural centres, and compounded by its isolation, Broken Hill has actively encouraged its artistic credentials and is promoting itself as a tourism destination in order to become less reliant upon mining as a source of employment. |
