Property
Issue No. 40 - April/ /
Resources fire up the Iron Triangle
by Mr Kel Spencer
Of recent times there has been a lot of excitement regarding the current mining boom in the states north. Port Augusta is considered to be the gateway to the north and is one town benefiting from the mining activities currently occurring at Beltana mines, Honeymoon, and Olympic Dam.
Latest figures and statistics illustrate that the northern region of the state is going strong. Looking at Port Augusta along with Port Pirie and Whyalla, confidence in these regions is very high and properties aren’t lasting long in what is considered to be a ‘hot’ market at the present time.
Graph 1 illustrates that for all three rural Local Government Area’s, Port Augusta, Port Pirie, and Whyalla, there has been significant growth in median prices from the December quarter 2006 to the end of the December quarter 2007.
It can be seen in Graph 1 that the median price for Port Augusta and Port Pirie increased by 21.95% and 18.68% respectively, while Whyalla’s median price increased by 41.38%.
In the 2006 Census there were 13, 874 people residing in Port Augusta. Of the 13,874, 50.6% were males, 49.4% were females and 16.6% were Indigenous persons.
Port Pirie had a similar population to Port Augusta at the time of the last census. Total number of persons was 13,206, which consisted of 48.2% being males and 51.8% females. Whyalla had a much larger population of 21,416 people.
Port Augusta has a median weekly individual income of $417 per week at the time of the 2006 Census. This is the highest of the three regions, while Port Pirie had the lowest median weekly individual income of $327 per week along with the lowest median weekly household and family income as seen in Graph 2. Whyalla’s median weekly individual income stands at $365 and at $1,037 per week it has a slightly higher median family income then Port Augusta’s which is $1,029.
According to the latest Census (2006), there were a total of 6,218 ...
