Port Wakefield’s Seven Point Pork abattoir closure reveals the cold truth of modern Australian ‘progress’ | Caleb Bond

A town of about 700 people is about to lose 270 jobs and be brought to its knees. This is what we call progress today, writes Caleb Bond.

A shopper enters a metropolitan Coles supermarket. Picture: NewsWire / James Gourley

Call me old fashioned but I think community is important.

Not that anyone else seems to anymore.

We live in a world where we can go anywhere at any time and talk to anyone at any time in any corner of the globe – and yet we’re more disconnected than ever.

We see that in the closure of the Seven Point Pork abattoir at Port Wakefield.

Losing 270 jobs in a town of barely 700 people is a death knell.

It will join a long list of country towns to lose its reason for being and shrink into obscurity.

Think of Terowie, in the state’s Mid North, where General Douglas MacArthur famously said “I shall return”.

It was once a railway and agricultural hub with 700 residents.

The main street, which nicely preserves its heritage buildings, features the offices of two old local and regional newspapers – the Terowie Enterprise, North Eastern Advertiser, the North Eastern Times and Terowie News.

Workers from aSeven Point Pork abattoir at Port Wakefield this week. Picture: Brett Hartwig.

Now it has about 100 people plus a few bikkie dippers taking morning tea outside their caravans.

This, I suppose, is progress and unavoidable.

But Port Wakefield’s demise is symptomatic of a greater malaise where we live closer together but grow further apart.

The abattoir is closing ostensibly because Coles has reduced its order.

That is now the power of the big supermarkets – they can dictate wholesale prices, retail prices, where the meat comes from and who slaughters it.

Many in the industry refer to it as an “abattoir crisis”.

Local operations serving small and medium-sized farms have been closing for more than a decade, replaced by high volume abattoirs focused solely on export and supermarkets.

That makes it harder and more expensive for local farmers to provide local meat to local butchers and restaurants, so business further consolidates into the hands of big players and away from people who care about the communities in which they work.

Again, you can call that progress because the market is dictated by the consumer who, by and large, favours price over quality and ethics.

But the market forces that have helped drive down prices for consumers only exist so long as the small players are still around.

Once all the butcher shops and small abattoirs have been killed then a small handful of operators will have complete control of the market – and thus the power to dictate prices with impunity.

Port Wakefield, north of Adelaidem is reeling from the news its abattoir will close. Picture: Brett Hartwig

No competition means no price reduction.

And then we lose community.

We now live in a world where we have no connection to the food we eat or, often, the people who live on our streets.

Many modern children, I am sure, would believe that milk comes from the supermarket.

We live in silos, disconnected from the reality of everything that allows us to live.

Another symptom is the demise of the watering hole – historians estimate that there were more than 20,000 pubs in Australia during the gold rush.

There are now about 5000, according to the AHA.

The local pub was once the meeting place, the social hub, the heart of a town or suburb.

No wonder loneliness is now one of the biggest mental health issues facing people both young and old.

How can it be that the population grows and yet our connections shrink?

Because we’ve lost sight of what is important.

These things happen little by little.

Convenience is all good and well but we’re at a tipping point that will, ultimately, hurt us.

Originally published as Port Wakefield’s Seven Point Pork abattoir closure reveals the cold truth of modern Australian ‘progress’ | Caleb Bond