THE bedrock of Broken Hill’s future is the airport, according to Dugald Saunders.
The leader of the New South Wales National Party was in the Silver City last week, meeting with civic leaders, business owners and locals to discuss the pressing issues of the day.
Mr Saunders was adamant that the long-awaited upgrade to the airport runway should be the number-one priority if Broken Hill is to grow into the 21st century.
“We started talking about the airport three or four years ago, the lengthening and strengthening of the runway,” Mr Saunders said.
“But the Federal Government doesn’t look at it, because it’s not a vote winner.”
Broken Hill City Council received almost $10 million in state and federal funding in 2023, which was used to upgrade the taxiways and aprons on the tarmac.
However, Mr Dugald insisted more funds are needed to strengthen the runway for use by larger aircraft.
“The cheap fix is about 10 million bucks,” he said. “That’ll get you a new layer on top, which will be good for, say, 10 years. If you do it properly, it’ll go for 20 or 30 years, and will probably only cost five million more. So, my take on it is to spend the extra five million and be looked after in the future.”
Mr Dugald said the issue is not just about tourism or cheaper fares, but is the key to Broken Hill’s ability to function as a modern community.
“The airport helps all economic drivers in the city,” he said. “It provides both assurance and insurance – for tourism, yes, but also capacity for emergency services, or to recover from disasters.
“Take, for example, October last year, when the power outage happened. If the runway had been stronger, we would have had generators out here the very next day. Instead, stuff had to be trucked out – it took ages for the stuff to be delivered to the trucks, and then it had to get here.”
Getting people here is just the first step, said Mr Dugald – keeping them in a city with a declining population would require significant housing growth, though he stressed his preference for renovating existing dwellings over new development.
“You should always try and build on infrastructure that’s already there,” he said. “But getting builders and tradies here to do the work is almost impossible. Again, if you have capacity at the airport it builds on your ability to get those people to town. Everyone loves the experience of coming out here and working and Broken Hill. It just doesn’t pay for them to do so because of the difficulty in getting here.”
Investment in Broken Hill, Mr Dugald said, should be of import to both state and federal governments.
“The way I look at the regions – and Broken Hill’s an excellent example – is that it’s the engine room,” he said.
“Cities on the coast just sort of function, but without mining and agriculture, they’ve got nothing.
“If it wasn’t for our export capacity, the state would be broke.”
