Nhulunbuy is a township that is the sixth largest population centre in the Northern Territory of Australia.
Nhulunbuy is a township that is the sixth largest population centre in the Northern Territory of Australia. Nhulunbuy was created on the Gove Peninsula in north-east Arnhem Land when a bauxite mine and a deep water port were established in the late 1960s, followed by an alumina refinery.The alumina refinery closed in May 2014, which resulted in 1,100 workers being redeployed or made redundant, and reduced the Nhulunbuy population by 700 to 3,240 in the 2016 Australian census. The median age was 32 in this census.
History
This area in Northeast Arnhem Land has been home to the Yolngu Aboriginal people for at least 40,000 years.
Matthew Flinders, in his circumnavigation of Australia in 1803, met the Macassan trading fleet near present-day Nhulunbuy, an encounter that led to the establishment of settlements on Melville Island and the Cobourg Peninsula. A beach close to the township is named Macassan Beach in honour of this encounter.
In 1963, a Federal government decision excised part of the land for a bauxite mine to be operated by the North Australian Bauxite and Alumina Company (Nabalco). The Yolngu Aborigines at Yirrkala were strongly opposed, and forwarded a bark petition to the Australian House of Representatives, which attracted national and international attention, and which now hangs in Parliament House, Canberra.To serve the mine, the town of Nhulunbuy was established, housing the workers and their families employed by Nabalco, which became Alcan in 2002.In 2003, Alcan Gove issued a notice of intent to Government of the Northern Territory re third stage expansion of the alumina refinery. During the 1970s, the population rose to approximately 3,500 with 1,000 students at the combined primary and high school. A new high school was opened in 1981. The mine was later owned by Rio Tinto, which acquired Alcan in 2007.
Permits are required to drive to Nhulunbuy — over 700 km (430 mi) of unsealed roads — so most supplies and visitors are brought by air to Gove Airport or by sea.
Nhulunbuy is only 20 km (12 mi) from the Indigenous community of Yirrkala, famous for its Aboriginal art.
For the purposes of granting tax rebates to residents of isolated areas as per Section 79A(3F) of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1936, the census population of Nhulunbuy is taken to be less than 2,500, although it was in fact 3,240 in the 2016 census.In 2019, a new Arnhem Space Centre near Nhulunbuy, an equatorial satellite launch facility, was announced.
Weather
Nhulunbuy has a tropical savannah climate (Aw). Temperatures are hot year round with very warm nights. The wet season lasts from December to May and experiences consistent and very heavy rainfall. Rainfall does occur during the dry season, but it usually is very uncommon and limited. Nhulunbuy has a very narrow temperature range like most tropical climates, with atemperature range of only 23.8 °C (42.8 °F).
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