Discussion: Kalumburu Road just got worse

Wasn't it even worse than that after last year's wet season?

It would, of course, be entirely cynical of me to draw any connection between the council's lack of interest and the fact that the road's endpoint is an Aboriginal community (when I drove it, the grading stopped at the entrance to the last (white) cattle station, about 75km short of Kalumburu itself).

I believe that's a remnant of the demise of ATSIC. ATSIC used to pay for grading roads on Aboriginal land. Now that ATSIC no longer exists, such services are supposed to be folded into the local councils, with communities paying part of the cost. The communities are all broke, because most of their funding got pulled and the ones without lots of tourism don't have many other (legal) revenue options, and the councils have not picked up their part of work either. One the Cape Leveque Road, for example, there are endless arguments about who pays for what, between Broome Shire, Beagle Bay [Ab'l land], the Lombo pastoral lease and One Arm Point [also Ab'l land], especially now that 2/3 of the road is tarred (and not the bit you'd expect, it's the bit between where the old road ended and Beagle Bay that's dirt, the last 150km is tarred.