BHP started life in 1885 as the brainchild of station hands and boundary riders on Mount Gipps station in western New South Wales.  The town that sprung up around their find of one of the largest lead, silver and zinc deposits in the world, Broken Hill, shares the name with the company, ‘Broken Hill Proprietary’.  BHP quickly earned the name of “the Big Australian” and fast became Australia’s economic barometer: whatever was good for BHP, was good for Australians.

World beating woolgrowers, beef producers, dryland farmers and vignerons aside, South Australia has very little going for it – in terms of prosperous, self-sustaining enterprise; and what there is depends very heavily upon the fortunes of BHP.  BHP, now ‘BHP Billiton’ owns and operates the enormous gold, copper and uranium mine at Olympic Dam in SA’s far north (see above).

South Australia’s hapless Labor government has been banking on the expansion…