Oceania | Society | Oceania

Australia’s Broken Hill: Where Children Are Sacrificed to Mining Interests 

A historical mining town in Australia’s outback is confronting severe lead-contamination health threats, disproportionately affecting Aboriginal children. 

Mining in Broken Hill persists despite ongoing lead poisoning of children.

Broken Hill is an Australian mining town steeped in history. The town’s legacy of union struggles for workers’ rights is chronicled through street plaques, protected heritage buildings, and murals reminiscent of early-20th-century Mexican muralism.

Under the expansive grey sky over Broken Hill, enormous mining wealth has been created – stretching from Australia to northern Chile and further. As with most forms of wealth, it is rooted in human hardship. In Broken Hill, mining wealth has been accumulated at the cost of children’s exposure to lead contamination. 

Last July, Australia’s New South Wales (NSW) state government, which includes Broken Hill, announced AU$37.3 million (approximately US$26.74 million) to address lead contamination. The funding, as stated in the announcement, will lead to a “twofold increase in the number of homes remediated annually, including the removal of lead-based paint to eliminate lead contamination, the installation of grass to trap dust, and enhanced monitoring of emissions from existing mines and other localized dust sources.”

In Broken Hill, emissions from mining and smelting are the primary source of exposure. Elevated blood lead levels among local children signal a public health crisis. The announcement “underscored a commitment to protect children and families from the long-term effects of lead exposure.”

The funding announcement follows a January 2026 report on reducing the health and environmental impacts of lead contamination in Broken Hill. The NSW Office of the Chief Scientist & Engineer (OCSE) issued the report. “A long history of lead mining in Broken Hill has left a legacy of widespread contamination and human exposure,” said Professor Hugh Durrant-Whyte, OCSE’s NSW Chief Scientist, in the report.

“While some progress has been made in reducing environmental lead levels and community exposure, improvements have slowed in recent years,” he added. “Delays in effective intervention risk irreversible impairment and potential lifelong complications across successive generations.”

NSW Minister for Health Ryan Park described the AU$37.3 million as an “investment” to “help reduce the risk of harm, particularly for young children and infants.” He added, “To see blood lead levels declining among young children screened in Broken Hill is very pleasing. Still, we know more needs to be done.”

“Underground,” a daily reminder of what lies beneath and around the streets of Broken Hill. Photograph: Antonio Castillo.

Broken Hill is 1,100 kilometers west of Sydney, approximately a two-hour flight. According to 2020 data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), it has a population of fewer than 20,000, of whom 6 percent are aged 0-4 years. Broken Hill is the birthplace of the mining giant BHP and is built on the world’s largest deposit of lead, silver, and zinc. 

Lead mining began in 1885. The first inquiry by the NSW government into Broken Hill’s poisoning dates to the early 1890s. “Lead is a metal that has been mined in Broken Hill for many years,” stated Lead Smart Broken Hill, an NSW public health initiative and community education campaign.

“Lead dust is found in Broken Hill’s dust, soil, dirt, and rainwater tanks, among other places,” according to the Broken Hill Lead Surveillance Program 2023 Annual Report. “It is harmful to people of all ages, but the risk is highest for unborn babies, infants, and young children.”

Cate Faehrmann, an Australian environmentalist and politician, has long been a critic of the NSW government’s lead remediation measures. “Every year we get another report showing Broken Hill children are being poisoned by lead, and every year the government expresses concern,” she said. “It is a national shame that Aboriginal children in Broken Hill are still twice as likely to have dangerous levels of lead in their blood.”

The World Health Organization (WHO) reported that “[l]ead exposure was attributed to more than........

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