They’re also enduring a crime crisis which they are reminded of each day in the central business district with shops protected by mesh walls.

These issues are intertwined with the loss of 1200 Glencore workers to be made redundant as copper operations and the concentrator closes in July next year.

Former Mount Isa mine workers have warned the redundancies could lead to a loss of knowledge and effectiveness within the company locally, if its plan was to cut wage costs.

Mount Isa Mines spokespeople say this is because there is no copper left to be able to mine.

But former mines electronics engineer Peter Roberts believes the shutdown of the copper operations could allow the current owner to renegotiate contracts.

Mr Roberts said MIM replaced his former position about 12 years ago with a woman at 60 per cent of what his wage was, and he said it could be happening again but with an emphasis on employing casual contractors.

This would be yet another blow the community had faced over the years.

Mr Roberts said the mining company used to offer generous incentives to its workforce and offered in-kind support to the community, but that this stopped with new owners and the community organisations have suffered.

“When MIM got sold out to Xstrata, Xstrata cancelled a lot of stuff,” he said.

“A third of my budget was supporting pubs and clubs and fixing their electronic gear for them.

“I had 22 people working for me, I got cut down to 11 and my off-site budget got cut to zero.

“That’s when all the clubs … they all went broke, because there was no more support coming from across the road.

“They went to 12 hours instead of the eight hour, and suddenly there were no footballers because they were all sleeping or working the night shift.”

Mount Isa Irish Club general manager Bernard Gillic compared the situation to the loss of 450 Glencore jobs about 10 years ago during the scaling back of zinc operations.

The impact then had been enormous, but the latest round of job losses would be more detrimental as it would make up seven per cent of the town’s workforce.

Mr Gillic said governments needed to inject capital into the town immediately.

“Copperstring obviously is amazing, it will be great when we get it but I think they’re talking six, seven years until the project’s coming,” he said.

“We appreciate it coming, but we need ready-now projects under way.”

Former dump truck driver Michael Regeling was impacted by Glencore lay-offs 10 years ago, but said he had other careers he could fall back on.

He said workers who had no other work history after studying and women were particularly vulnerable to job losses.

“I know a lot of girls that lost their jobs, so they had nothing to go to, so most of them were in homes, got pregnant, and stayed home,” he said.

He remained in Mount Isa with his 91-year-old father Allan, a former MIM worker and a founder of the Hard Times Mine tourist attraction.

“Like I said to Dad, nothing wrong with the town, it’s what you make it,” he said.

“And the problem is the people today don’t want to make it, the way they think everything is thrown in front of them.”

Mr Regeling said there were many jobs available in Mount Isa but that there were many people not willing to take them or to re-skill into other opportunities that might be offered to them.

“These younger ones don’t want to work, they wait to see the dollars straight in front of them first and then they might go to work,” he said.