Mechanic Neil Tennant knows he's been pretty lucky.
When he quit his job as a mechanic at a car dealership to work on bigger machines driving across the Pilbara's iron-rich dirt five years ago, his pay packet doubled.
It kept swelling, allowing him to buy an investment property and begin doing up his dream home in Cowaramup, a small country town in the heart of the Margaret River wine region three hours south of Perth.
Tennant, 31, was cashed up and, like many others, living the dream. This week everything changed.
The crashing ore price cost him his job working for a contractor with Mount Gibson Iron, a small iron ore producer operating mines in far north Western Australia.
"The chances of getting the same job with another employer is going to be fairly difficult with so many people back out on the 'meat market'," he tells Fairfax Media.
He's selling that investment property and sending off applications to other miners.
Aware of mass sackings across the industry, he's not taking his chances. He has also applied for a job at Super Cheap Auto.
This is the human story behind the headlines as Pilbara miners slash costs and shed staff in a desperate bid to remain profitable as iron ore prices collapse.
It would be myopic to dismiss the pain about to be felt by Tennant and his wife, Cara-Leigh, whose teacher's wage will have to stretch to cover the mortgage and living expenses.
Iron ore is the nation's single-biggest export, generating $74.6 billion last financial year.
The value of those exports is falling fast, along with the lucrative royalties governments earn from them.
It's ignited a brawl between BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto and just about everyone else – from industry executives to politicians – who can't fathom why the big miners have continued to increase supply even as flagging demand from China has seen prices dive to below $US50 a tonne from four times that level at the peak of the boom a few years ago.
For the big miners, it's quite simple. They are competing fiercely against each other and Brazilian miner Vale.
If one company cuts production, what guarantee is there that their competitor will?
This goes some way to explaining Fortescue Metals Group chairman Andrew Forrest's frustrated call for the miners to work together to cap production – a suggestion lashed by some as creating a highly illegal cartel.
Rio Tinto managing director Sam Walsh labelled it harebrained.
Walsh is defiant against the growing backlash, including West Australian premier Colin Barnett describing its production strategy as one of the "dumbest corporate plays" he's ever seen.
Walsh told investors at its annual meeting in London this week Rio would push ahead with its expansion plans.
The company wants to lift production from 290 million tonnes to 330 million tonnes this year and continue expanding to reach 350 million tonnes by 2017.
"Our Pilbara expansion represents a clear and consistent strategic response to the unprecedented long-term growth in China," Walsh says.
In a rare public criticism of its partner, the nation's second-biggest Aboriginal corporation, Gumala Aboriginal Corporation, has lashed Rio for helping create a "manufactured crisis" that was hurting Aboriginal communities and mining contractors.
"We have a perfect storm and it's our view that what this is creating is a destructive outcome for the sector, collateral damage for Aboriginal contractors, lower benefits to traditional owners and Western Australia potentially going to recession in the next 12 months," Gumala chief executive Steve Mav says.
For Fortescue Metals Group chief executive Nev Power, the increasingly nasty battle in the Pilbara will have profound consequences for every Australian.
"It impacts everyone in Australia, whether you work in iron ore or not, because of the massive impact that the iron ore industry has on the economy," Power told reporters on Thursday.
"So I think there is an absolute issue here of public interest, to try and make sure there is the maximum amount of value [created] that we can in the industry."
Fortescue, which will itself lift production by 10 million tonnes this financial year, is expected to shed 700 staff in the coming months as it abandons its family-friendly eight-days-on, six-days-off rosters for two weeks on, one week off.
It means fewer miners will work longer hours to produce the same amount of ore.
Fortescue has little choice. The job cuts will help it get costs down to $US39 a tonne next year.
Even then, it may struggle to turn a profit. There are fears about whether it can fulfill its debt obligations due in a few years if iron ore prices stay in the doldrums.
Iron ore prices have slumped 60 per cent from $US117 per tonne a year ago to $US49.78 per tonne but are tipped to go even lower.
Analysts at Citi expect prices to fall to $US36 a tonne in the third quarter and stay below $US40 for the rest of the year as big miners boost supply even though China's demand is declining.
Ratings agency Standard & Poor's has put the big miners on credit watch after slashing its price forecast for iron ore to $US45 a tonne (down from $US65), a 2016 price of $US50 (down from $US65) and a 2017 price of $US55 (down from $US70).
Even BHP and Rio are now on notice from Standard & Poor's that their credit strength could be downgraded.
Treasurer Joe Hockey will factor in prices going as low as $US35 a tonne in the May budget, and this could punch a $25 billion hole in government revenue.
If prices hit $US35 a tonne, it would sink a $6 billion hole in the West Australian budget, which sustained a $7.1 billion hit just four months ago as Treasury slashed its ore price forecasts.
Cue a viscous state stoush between premiers over the carve-up of the $54 billion GST pie. Western Australia has found itself in a perfect storm.
Mining royalties that last year accounted for nearly a quarter of its income have collapsed but so, too, has its GST revenue – set to fall to below 30 cents in the dollar – as it pays the price for the boom years.
It means it's not just miners losing their jobs. Thousands of public servants are being culled and, under a radical plan, the WA government is slashing bureaucrat pay packets. New recruits will get just 60 per cent of the salary paid to the previous employee.
If ore prices do fall to $US35 a tonne, there will be further pain for investors and the broader economy.
Fortescue would be turning a loss. Its main rivals, BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto, would generate a slim $US1-a-tonne profit. Numerous smaller players would be gone.
It's an ominous backdrop for the nation's richest person, Gina Rinehart, to open a new mine.
Mrs Rinehart plans to open her $10 billion Roy Hill mine in September.
If prices don't rebound when she reaches her targeted 55 million tonnes run rate – expected by 2017 – the project is likely face losses.
Merrill Lynch forecasts Roy Hill's production costs will be $US45 a tonne, excluding interest costs.
Interestingly, Rinehart has backed the strategy by BHP and Rio to increase production, arguing if Australian mines did not, rival nations would. The world's third-biggest iron ore producer, Vale, is based in Brazil.
Mrs Rinehart has a close relationship with Rio, which mines tenements pegged by her father Lang Hancock, delivering plenty of royalty cheques during the years.
At current prices ($US49.78) all of the nation's smaller miners are nursing losses.
Junior miner Atlas Iron has already become a casualty, with plans to mothball its mines by the end of the month.
When mines are shuttered the effects can be severe and felt far away.
For instance, Victorian transport company McAleese generates half its earnings from providing trucking services to Atlas.
Atlas is its largest customer and if the miner shuts all its operations, or falls in to receivership, it could put McAleese in financial jeopardy.
It's rallying with other contractors to try to get Atlas to keep two of its three mines open.
Chasing the boom
Then there are the people who uprooted their lives chasing the boom.
Thousands flocked to the Nullarbor chasing work in WA. Miners happily paid for their flights. But the largesse stopped in January.
If you wanted to continue working on a mine site, now you have to pay your own way to get to Perth.
Every minute detail is being examined by miners as they hunt for cost cuts.
Biscuits are being culled from "crib rooms", on-site portable rooms where miners take breaks in their shifts.
Meals that were once served on flights from mine sites to Perth have been ditched.
At one contractor, workers who used to be issued with five sets of uniforms now receive only three sets.
Fortescue workers are soon to lose their coveted eight-days-on, six-days-off family-friendly roster in favour of two weeks on, one week off.
It is estimated to cost about 700 jobs.
In February, BHP decided to use a facilities management contractor rather than two employees to clean a truck stop at one of its Pilbara operations, saving the company $70,000 a year.
It's a minor saving but it highlights the depth miners are sinking to cut production costs.
The slashed spending is washing across the economy.
Those looking for a silver lining would point to the boost some industries such as tourism get as the dollar falls at the fag end of the boom. It is also cooling down the west.
For years, residents and visitors to Perth have complained about excessive prices, including at restaurants and pubs.
Andy Freeman, who runs Perth's Varnish on King, Flour Factor and Darlings Supper Club, will start putting cheaper lunch options on his menus from next month.
"The lunch trade is pretty terrible," Freeman says.
"We will do some more affordable options for under $20."
He says trade began cooling in November and it was noticeable that regulars who were coming to dinner every week, now dropped in every two to three weeks.
Grain farmer Dan Cooper grows wheat and barley on a farm about 400 kilometres east of Sydney.
He has never met Tennant but has become the unlikely beneficiary of a downturn that cost Tennant his job.
As Tennant returned to Perth without a job, Cooper had drill rigs once used to explore mining tenements searching for water on his property.
He was able to get holes drilled for half the rate he was quoted a year ago from traditional bore-hole drillers.
"The exploration drillers are looking for work so they're heading to ag," Cooper says.
"That competition will put downward pressure on prices."
The competition for jobs means Tennant has invested $3000 to gain a formal qualification of the skills he already has so he can get past stricter recruitment regimes by the miners.
"We have had it good for a long time," Tennant says.
"There's always whingers who feel hard done by. But it's up to the workers now [to help cut costs]. I do hope this will make Perth a less expensive place and things can come back to earth."
He feels luckier than some of his colleagues who are also finding themselves without a job. One, he says, just welcomed their second child and he was the sole income earner.
"We are going to be OK but I worry about some others," Tennant says.
"We didn't rack up the credit cards or go on lavish holidays. We've only got one car. We have a lot of big dreams with the house. That's what's really breaking our heart at the moment. We had dreams to have our own big castle. But really, I've been so blessed. It had to all come crashing down at some stage."
