Lonely Aussie Men

[dales]

Australian miners are well paid but lonely
Angus Whitley, Bloomberg Businessweek

Sunday, August 28, 2011

A short walk from Australia's largest open-pit gold mine, 35-year-old driller Matt Brown swigs a beer in the Rock Inn Hotel and laments one of his biggest problems: "You get lonely," he says of life in dusty Kalgoorlie, 375 miles from Perth, the capital of Western Australia. "Relationships are the hardest thing about mining."

The heartache in places like Kalgoorlie and the Queensland coal town of Glenden, which has 23 bachelors in their 40s for each single woman, is a headache for companies like Rio Tinto Group that are trying to attract recruits. "It's a wonderful life for many, but for many people there's a crippling isolation," says Gervase Greene, a spokesman in Perth for Rio Tinto's iron-ore operations.

To compensate, companies offer seven-hour, round-trip flights to cities every few weeks, satellite phones to connect miners with loved ones, and counseling. Employers will even fly in families for employees who keep mines going over the Christmas holiday. And, of course, pay is sky-high: Miners' wages have risen 33 percent in the past five years in Australia, to A$2,113 ($2,222) a week, or more than double the national average, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. The higher labor expenses are raising expansion costs, Rio Tinto said in August after reporting a first-half profit that missed analyst estimates.

Rough life despite perks
Despite the perks and pay, it's still a rough life. Tim Douglas, a mining engineer with Macmahon Holdings, works eight-day stints at Rio Tinto's Argyle Diamond Mine in the East Kimberley region, with six-day breaks in Perth, a 3 1/2-hour flight away.

"You've got to pretty much give up your life," says Douglas, 24, who split up with his girlfriend in February. "A lot of my friends have been eyeing some quick cash in the mines, but it's not all it's cracked up to be."

That makes it harder for Roger Edwards, managing director of Acorn Recruitment in Kalgoorlie. He has 120 openings for electricians, welders, laborers and drillers that pay as much as A$5,000 a week.

"The only thing that can keep us going is getting people from elsewhere," says Edwards, who supplies workers for BHP Billiton and the Super Pit, owned by Barrick Gold and Newmont Mining. "But the fly-in, fly-out workers destroy the community. They're the ones who go crazy."

Not to depair...

A mile from the Super Pit, miners' orange safety shirts glow through the windows of bars along Burt Street, many served by barmaids dressed only in black-lace underwear. Two blocks away, at the Langtrees brothel (prostitution is legal in Australia), the manager, who calls herself Dylan Delights, recruits from as far away as Ireland.

"Just come and have some fun and make as much money as you can," she says on the phone to a woman in Tasmania. "What was your name, sweetheart? My name's Dylan. I'm the madam."

'Uniquely Australian issue'
Bernard Salt, a partner at KPMG in Melbourne, says the mining boom continues a history of gender isolation.

"It's a uniquely Australian issue," says Salt, whose books include "Man Drought: And Other Social Issues of the New Century." Australian women, who once stayed in remote towns and married early, now add to the imbalance by moving to cities for work and school, he says.

When they get there, they find men in short supply.

"I've got a bunch of single girlfriends and we're looking, but we've been scratching our heads wondering where all the decent men are," said Lara Iacusso, a 41-year-old former Deloitte corporate finance partner who moved to Sydney from Perth more than three years ago. "It's definitely tough."

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f ... 1KS2GH.DTL



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[Scooter]

There's a similar thing happening here in the Alberta tar sands. Lots of men making huge money in a very isolated area, a lot of prostitutes have moved up there, and lots of drug use from sheer boredom. There is a new HIV epidemic in the making and people will probably realize it too late, when wives and girlfriends around the country who never imagined themselves to be at risk start getting sick because of the monthly trips their hubbies are making home.

[The Hen]

Obviously some more spinsters are needed in these areas.

Maybe if they opened a good library, or a knitting circle perhaps?

[Aard Vark]

I have many mates in the mines in North Queensland. The big problem is the wives don't want to live in the harsh enviroments. Doesn't matter that every thing has air conditioning and all the most modden gadgets to make life easy.
So they wat the big house on the coat and hubby can work his guts out to pay for it.

It is a hard life but you get paied big to put up withthat

[liberty]

Russian and East European women might be interested in getting to know these men.

[Scooter]

Sure, because they're nothing but cunts for sale to the highest bidder, right?

[liberty]

Sure, because they're nothing but cunts for sale to the highest bidder, right?

I didn’t say that and the way I see it if two individual are happy with an arrangement it is none of my business.

There is an old saying that goes a girl can be just as much in love with a rich man as a poor man.

As long as a person is honest I don’t see how it matters how they find happiness.

Do you think computer dating is immoral?

[Scooter]

Then why single out a region of the world known for supplying compliant mail order brides? Your meaning was patently obvious, that these men need to find themselves a dutiful little wife who will be so glad to have escaped whatever hell she was living in that she wouldn't dare complain about living in the middle of nowhere.

[Aard Vark]

The local term is postage stamp wives and most are from Asia but where ever they come from they are looking for the same as everyone "A better life"

I can say after my X had a full on screeming foot stamping tantrum about me getting work in the Pete Downs Mine. The simple options were I take the job I go on my own and never see my kids or I stay in Bris and she keeps her job. Well how could I give up my kids for any job and how could she give up f#$king her boss so I can have a good job?

If I was offered a Russian Bride I might be working up there and not sitting on my farm?? Or I would of saved enough money to buy a farm and still have the job.
You should watch the Doco searies Looking for a Husband (I think it is called) presented and staring a British woman who gose around the world asking women about how they find hubans. The Russian Brides who take classes on how to impress Western men leaning everything from cooking to sex.

Well all I can say if had married a woman who is willing to do or accept anything to make their husband happy I might be a lot better off now.

[liberty]

Then why single out a region of the world known for supplying compliant mail order brides? Your meaning was patently obvious, that these men need to find themselves a dutiful little wife who will be so glad to have escaped whatever hell she was living in that she wouldn't dare complain about living in the middle of nowhere.

You are not very good with people are you? After all these years you don’t know me very well. Eastern Europe with its population of blonds and red heads, whose genes by the way were brought in by the Vikings, have some of the most beautiful woman in the world. Although some woman with Slavic features can be strictly beautiful none can compare with a gorgeous red head with true Celtic features.

Well I reckon having a personal preference for beautify makes me racist too.


And since they come from a deprived background I would like think that they would less spoiled than people from other regions, but that is no guarantee.

[Scooter]

You are not very good with people are you?

Are you putting yourself in the category of "people"? Best not to aim too high.

[loCAtek]

Is that why you settled for demonic imp?

[BoSoxGal]

There is an old saying that goes a girl can be just as much in love with a rich man as a poor man.

My mother used to say this. The sentiment behind it is despicable to me and always has been. I know lots of women (and a few men) who follow this 'rule' and all I can say is they generally get what they deserve.

Because as my old boss (a very successful attorney doing lots of divorce & estate planning) used to say: 'S/he who marries for money earns every penny.'

[Gob]

We know someone who did something similar. She married a guy for these qualities; he would give her kids, and earned enough to give her a VERY comfortable housewifely existence, playing the "earth mother" at home all day.

She cracked up. Literally lost the plot. Mad as a fucking hatter.

Whether that was due to her living with the complete "Aspergerish" arsehole she married, or she was just mad in any case, who knows?

[Aard Vark]

My sister (a verry succesfull Tv producer) who has lived with the same man for some 30 + years said, "Never marry for love. If it falls apart your unhappy and go broke in the seperation. Only marry for money, that way when you break up you at least make a proffit"

[loCAtek]

My sister is playing this game; she not only married a rich man, he was her boss.

She's one of the happiest, vainest, most patronizingly stuck up, (_$_) = Rich Ass hoe's you'll ever meet.

Worse than Paris Hilton. My sis always has this shit-eatin' grin, when she insults everyone in her baby-talk voice. Somehow she thinks she can disguise the fact that she's a world-class bitch, behind being a spoiled brat.



No, we don't talk, she disgusts me.