King Island’s lesson for the Tassie mainland

The recent announcement that the Tasmanian state government is converting a loan to King Island‘s only working mine into an equity stake means this mine has a lifeline. If the government hadn’t stepped in, then 95 jobs would have been at stake. As well as the $10million publicly funded loan given to mine.

The price of Tungsten could go through the roof. Its handy for renewable energy projects, so it may well be a smart piece of business.

But there’s a larger factor at play.

It’s tempting to imagine King Island as Tasmania’s answer to paradise: wide-open beaches, dramatic cliffs, amazing golf links and the purest sea breezes money can’t buy—unless you’re one of the wealthy few who can.

But behind those postcard shots and epic golf courses, life for the locals is pretty grim. Think rising costs, patchy health services, and, to top it off, the impending closure of the iconic King Island Dairy. The mine has been saved, but little of the hoped for profits will go back to King Island.

The well-heeled can fly in for a weekend, parade around the coast with their nine irons, and snap up seaside holiday homes so they can “escape” the city. The island gets an influx of tourist dollars—at least while the visitors are swanning about. But guess what also goes up? The price of just about everything else. Freight costs, fuel, groceries, rent—if you can find somewhere to live that’s not an Airbnb.

Two-week tourism stints might be a blast for visitors, but they do little for King Islanders who need year-round basics like healthcare and housing. But that’s what you get when government policy seems more focused on boosting the high-end visitor market than ensuring essential services keep pace with demand.

Meanwhile, if you actually live on King Island, you’ve likely been to more medical appointments off-island than on. Specialist visits? Better start saving—travel’s expensive, time away from work stings, and if it’s not urgent, you could be waiting months. It’s the kind of healthcare model that’s straight out of the 1950s.

You’d think someone in parliament would have noticed that King Islanders can’t keep footing the bill for everything. Or that once you lose your main dairy, or the mine continues to run at a loss, your local economy relies on tourist dollars or state bailouts. Then again, its the Rockcliff government we are talking about. The ones that can’t berth a ferry, the ones that think a new AFL stadium is the answer to the state’s problems.

It’s almost as if their official game plan is to focus on big-ticket tourism stuff while the small-but-crucial local economy slowly bleeds. You can’t keep pinning everything on “the money will trickle down,” when evidence suggests it barely drips. And if King Island’s troubles don’t set off alarm bells for the rest of Tasmania, maybe we need a louder alarm.

King Island’s twin sister, Flinders, doesn’t have a commercial mine or diary. Or any “must play” golf courses. Its primary produce and a spot of tourism keeps it alive, but barely. A recent housing report notes that,

“Flinders Island lacks the critical mass in population, housing, and economic activity to generate the momentum needed for a viable, self-sustaining population”.

We might brush this off as “just an island problem,” but both island’s predicaments are a test run for the whole state. When tourism outstrips core infrastructure, when real estate turns into holiday-home heaven, and when your best-known industry shuts up shop—suddenly “living the dream” doesn’t look so dreamy.

The cost of being a King Islander will mean that people just can’t afford to live there. Communities hollow out, services get thinner, and the only people who can afford to stay are those breezing in for a round of coastal golf.

Think that won’t happen to the rest of Tasmania? Tell that to the plane load of (mainly younger) Tasmanians leaving each week to settle on the mainland.

Why? Because there are not enough houses and not enough work.

Farming is not appealing to the next generation. Costs are rising and returns are falling.

And with no childcare places and a lack of decent rural healthcare, why stay?

But there’s always the golf for the rest of who remain.