The one word guaranteed to exasperate Jim Walker is “skimpies”. The boss of Kalgoorlie-Boulder’s Diggers and Dealers conference says the days of debauchery in mining’s Wild West are specks in the rearview mirror, and the tedious trope about miners’ encounters with scantily clad barmaids in the city’s pubs is unwarranted and outdated.
For many of its 30-plus years, the annual gabfest was widely regarded primarily as an industry piss-up, with the secondary benefit of placing mining in front of east coast investors and capital markets players. A place of business and pleasure, but not necessarily in that order.
Loading…