Margaret Hawke's home town of Port Hedland is regularly celebrated for its critical contribution to the Australian economy.
The town is one of the world's most valuable ports, sitting at the centre of Western Australia's lucrative iron ore industry, where billions of export dollars are generated.
But in the hours before local Margaret Hawke killed her children last year, she reached out for support and was turned away from a service that said it did not have the resources to help.
In July 2022, Hawke attended a local women's refuge and asked if it could help her family.
Staff said the refuge did not have capacity, and a short time later, Hawke murdered her 10-year-old daughter, seven-year-old son and four-month-old baby boy, before setting their modest home on fire.
These details were heard by the state's Supreme Court, where Hawke is due to be sentenced today on three counts of murder and one charge of criminal damage by fire.
Almost one year after the children were killed, the Port Hedland community wants action taken to prevent further tragedies and boost support services in the town.
'Wealth creator' is missing out
When visiting Port Hedland and the state's Pilbara region earlier this year, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said about 4 per cent of Australia's GDP passes through the local port.
He described it as "a great wealth creator".
According to the Pilbara Ports Authority, Port Hedland is the biggest bulk export facility in the world, with the main focus being iron ore, lithium and salt.
But local leaders say not enough of this money is returned to the community, and the most vulnerable people feel it the most.
Nyamal elder Linda Doogiebee said everyone in Port Hedland was hurt by the loss of the three children.
She said more of the billions generated by the port needed to be put back into the town's support services for people struggling with mental health issues and victims of domestic violence.
"The Pilbara is the hub of the Australian economy … to this day, nobody has come up and offered a bag of sugar, if I might say," she said.
Ms Doogiebee, who sits on the state's premier Indigenous advisory body, said the first step was to build and staff another women's refuge in Port Hedland.
"We need to have a 'fresh lens' centre, where we have a lot more programs that we can learn from the tragedies that occurred here," she said.
"[Mental health issues have] escalated so much, and we're not even anywhere close to touching the surface as to how we can work collectively together to help out people who have suffered."
Ms Doogiebee called on the state government to figure out a way forward with people on the ground, particularly with local Aboriginal leaders.
"It will be a way to bring our communities together to identify what is the core support that we need," she said.
Stalwart says it's getting worse
Arnold Carter, who has lived in Port Hedland for 61 years, said dysfunction in the town had "gotten worse over time", linking it to a lack of mental health services.
"You do not have the facilities here that you expect to have for a population [of this size] and also the type of industry that we have," he said.
The 96-year-old said watching billions of dollars be exported from the port while the community largely missed out made him "feel lost".
"They've got this big bucket of money and it's all coming out of this area, but when it gets distributed, it is not distributed to the people," he said.
"[The services] should be in gold towers, but they're in absolutely nothing."
Local efforts
State and federal governments are not the only recipients of the lucrative royalties that flow from exporting WA's minerals overseas.
Nyamal woman Sharon Westerman said there were many "resource rich" native title trusts that hold money for traditional owners, which should play a central role in the solutions.
She said the contrast between the wealth that was made in Port Hedland and the struggling sections of the community had been a long-running issue.
"It's not a money problem. There's plenty of money," she said.
Ms Westerman said a "new direction" needed to be adopted by the government and community, where solutions to the town's crises were found and delivered from the grassroots.
"It's about all those stakeholders really coming together to look at how they can align their resources to actually deliver better programs, build better structures, whatever is needed," she said.
'We fund them better than ever': Premier
Premier Mark McGowan told the ABC his government was committed to reducing family violence across the state.
"We fund them better than ever before, we've put in place more women's refuges, more domestic violence services, increased funding all over Western Australia, but they're always under pressure," he said.
The state government said it had contributed $5.85 million to the Hedland Women's Refuge Inc since 2014.
In response to questions about Port Hedland's share of funding, Mr McGowan pointed to the government's work across the Pilbara's major centres.
"We're doing a whole range of capital works and service improvements in Hedland, Karratha and Newman, communities all over the Pilbara," he said.
"To make sure the standard of living here and the services provided, particularly in those core areas of health education and community safety, are second to none."
