In the Exchange Hotel's pub in Kalgoorlie, Western Australia, Kasey Wallace, still in his dusty, bright orange mine uniform, is celebrating with his half brother Blake Morgan with a beer — or six. Wallace, 18, just drove home from work. A drive home might seem like a flimsy excuse for a drink, but Wallace has a daunting commute: a 730-km journey north to an iron mine on mostly dirt roads. "You did it, mate," says Morgan, clinking beers with Wallace. "Though, next time you might want to consider flying."
The two order another round from a "skimpy" — local argot for barmaids flown in from the Gold Coast on the other side of Australia to strip while they serve. The more they're tipped, the less they wear. Nearly all of Kalgoorlie's 26 bars employ skimpies. A few ladies at another pub down the road, Wallace confides, are professional strippers who'll add a lap dance for the right amount of money. And for those looking for the ultimate gratification, there are legal brothels on Hay Street, one of which just had a $5.4 million renovation. "Can you tell," Morgan laments, "that there are three times more men than women here?" The half brothers are also celebrating a new apartment they just rented together in Kalgoorlie, population 35,000 and a six-hour drive from anywhere, for $1,440 a month.
"I used to do fly-in-fly-out," Wallace says, referring to miners who fly to remote sites for grueling shifts that last weeks. "But I don't do it anymore. Who wants to work 12 hours a day?"
Morgan is a semiretired concreter at the ripe old age of 21. He's saved enough money from previous stints to coast for a while, and he wants to focus on a potential career in motocross — a popular sport in a state nearly four times the size of Texas and 70% desert or semiarid land. Morgan says he spent $210,000 on motocross last year. "I could've gone all the way, but too many broken bones, too much alcohol and drugs." He shrugs. He's got the time and money to make another go of it.
This is what it's like to be young and rich in Western Australia, home to the largest number, per capita, of self-made millionaires in the world. The boys take lavish surfing holidays to Bali or gambling expeditions to Las Vegas. Anywhere else they'd be making a third of their salaries, but because of the insane demand for workers in Western Australia, they can pretty much name their price.
The massive red deserts of Western Australia are some of the least hospitable places on the planet. Temperatures regularly top 49°C. The region is full of deadly creatures, from snakes to scorpions to spiders. The week I was there, two people were medically evacuated for snakebites, and the radio drilled constant warnings about how summer is deadly spider season. There are plagues of locusts. What little scrub exists is under almost constant risk of brush fire. And the ground is literally sewn with salt: the water table is six times saltier than the ocean, creating giant white dots where water once pooled. Though divided into quaint-sounding shires, the terrain is more akin to Mordor. So why would anyone choose to work here?
Billions of reasons. Underneath the red earth is a wealth of natural resources. In 2012 — 13, Western Australia produced 513 million tons — or $55 billion worth — of iron ore, $6 billion worth of crude oil, $12 billion in liquefied natural gas and $8.7 billion in gold. Overall, the state accounts for 40% of Australia's exports. U.S. companies have poured more than $82 billion into the territory, making it the top recipient of private U.S. investment in the world. Driven by Chinese demand, the resources boom has led Australia to a quarter-century straight of growth.