General News
4 June, 2025
Mount Isa City Council to wake up with Today
$25,000 of ratepayer money will go towards the cost of funding the Today show's appearance.
Ratepayers will cover half of the cost of bringing Channel 9’s Today show to Mount Isa for this year’s rodeo.
Last week, councillors voted 4-1 in favour of contributing $25,000 towards flying out Karl Stefanovic and roughly a dozen colleagues to broadcast live from the Outback on the Friday of this year’s Mount Isa Mines Rodeo.
Mayor Peta MacRae, deputy mayor Kim Coghlan, and councillors Travis Crowther and James Coghlan voted in favour of the motion.
Councillor Dan Ballard was the only one to vote against, with John Tully and John Doyle absent from the monthly council meeting.
“Tourism is an ever-growing market. The more we can promote to those tourists that Mount Isa can be a destination where they can see not just the rodeo, but our great surrounds – when we look at the lake, granite mines, Mary Kathleen – there’s that much opportunity for people to see,” Cr Crowther said in the meeting.
“Obviously, they won’t be able to showcase all of that, but if they can get some parts of it, we should be able to see that we can get a great return on investment with that.
“We do a lot of promoting inside Mount Isa, but we need to really start promoting Mount Isa to the nation, and this is going to be a great way to do it.”
Cr Ballard said he supported the comments of his colleagues, but said it was hard to justify the spend when the city was in a state of disrepair.
“I believe $25,000 does represent great value for money and I think that hosting the Today show is an invaluable opportunity to let Australia know that Mount Isa has an affordable property market, great schools, employment opportunities, and a really attractive lifestyle,” he said.
“(But) last week we were told that council has insufficient funds to try and bolster the resources within the infrastructure department and I think anyone who gets around town and sees it – it’s still in a somewhat an unkempt state – there’s still water leaks ... for me it boils down to priorities.
“We need to prioritise where those funds are going.”
Cr James Coghlan said he wanted the Today show to highlight the opportunities in Mount Isa.
“The number of young people, young professionals, that come here and love the place – we need to sell it,” he said.