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General News

23 October, 2024

Council hoping Brisbane trip will help secure prosperity for the city

The mayor, CEO and all elected councillors have been in the capital this week.

By Matt Nicholls

Mount Isa mayor Peta MacRae, CEO Tim Rose and councillors John Doyle, John Tully, Dan Ballard, James Coghlan, Travis Crowther and Kim Coghlan.
Mount Isa mayor Peta MacRae, CEO Tim Rose and councillors John Doyle, John Tully, Dan Ballard, James Coghlan, Travis Crowther and Kim Coghlan.

Mount Isa City Council says it is hoping to lock up some big deals – or at least advance major projects – during its trip to Brisbane this week.

Mayor Peta MacRae, CEO Tim Rose and all of the elected councillors were seen pounding the pavement of the city streets on Monday ahead of the first of many meetings, which also coincided with the Local Government Association of Queensland annual conference and AGM.

“To achieve anything (as a council) you need to have a team and everyone needs to understand the direction you are taking and why you’re making the decisions you are,” she said.

“It’s not much good having a mayor that has all the contacts and knows everyone and has reasons for making their decisions but is not taking everyone else along for the ride.

“So part of (the trip) is to keep a united council well informed and moving together in a direction where we can get great results for the city.

“Also, apart from the deputy mayor (Kim Coghlan) every other councillor is brand new, so it’s great for them to be able to understand the process.

“I think there are 1200 mayors and councillors registered (for the LGAQ conference). At these sessions, they will present what councils are doing all over the state, which should give us some ideas and inspiration.

“I know some of the things I saw in my first year in 2016 when I went to the LGAQ conference are things that I wanted to come and implement back in Mount Isa.”

PROJECTS ON HORIZON

THE recent Flying Whales announcement could just be the tip of the iceberg for investment in Mount Isa, Cr MacRae said.

Perhaps what was buried in the freight hub news was the unlocking of a critical parcel of land north if the city.

With Glencore agreeing in principle to release the land, it means Mount Isa City Council can push ahead with its plans for the Australian Critical Minerals Industrial Precinct (ACMIP) between the airport and George Fisher Mine.

That means the council can now advance its talks with businesses keen to make the move to Mount Isa.

One of those is the University of Queensland’s Sustainable Minerals Institute to establish a critical minerals research centre.

The council met with UQ on Monday morning.

“They briefed the councillors on the work they’ve been doing – we’ve been talking to them about what we want the research centre to look like – so they showed us all the research they had done on all of the different research centres throughout the world and what would be most applicable for our area and get us the best results,” Cr MacRae told North West Weekly.

“It’s not a done deal because obviously it’s going to be quite expensive so we’re going to be looking for support.”

Cr MacRae said Mount Isa had also put itself in the running to host a battery anode materials plant when Axon Graphite kicks off its mining and processing operations in the North West. The graphite company was previously focused on Townsville as the plant site, but has been in talks with Mount Isa City Council on the potential to develop it within the ACMIP.

“It just fits the brief of what we’re after and that’s just not ripping and shipping anymore,” the mayor said.

“It’s using our minerals to add value and create high-tech jobs for our young people.

“We don’t want that graphite shipped to Taiwan where it would traditionally go. We want to keep that whole process right here and I think it’ll be a great thing for our town.”

The council was also due to meet with Green Gravity, which says it can use the disused underground mines at Mount Isa for an innovative project.

Cr MacRae said the council team would also meet with several state and federal MPs, as well as Opposition representatives, to lobby for further support for Mount Isa in the wake of Glencore’s 1200 projected job losses.

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