General News
12 March, 2025
United approach needed for Special Economic Zone
John Cotter believes the North West must join forces before governments will take the proposal seriously.
Local industry and councils must “hunt as a pack” to combat the “government overreach” that is hindering the development of projects and stalling job opportunities in our region, says North West Phosphate’s John Cotter.
The regulatory and cost burdens of doing business in the North West has again been thrust into the spotlight after administrators have been called into four junior mining projects surrounding Cloncurry in recent months, including Ardmore Phosphate Mine last week.
Mr Cotter has thrown his support behind calls for a Special Economic Zone (SEZ) to provide a localised tax and regulatory framework that was geared towards increasing investment and employment as well as providing a pragmatic regulatory foundation for new projects.
He said the creation of a SEZ would send a “clear message” to government agencies that supporting infrastructure, such as the Mount Isa to Townsville rail line, needed to become a greater priority.
The businessman, who has strong ties to the LNP, said he believed there was a political willingness to explore new ideas, such as a North West SEZ, among decision-makers within the Crisafulli government.
However, Mr Cotter echoed statements from former Fortescue Metals Group CEO Nev Power that the scope of a SEZ needed to be supported by local business and councils before any lobbying could be undertaken with Brisbane and Canberra decision-makers.
He said there was a range of regulatory burdens, such as removing the up-front payment of tens of millions of dollars in environmental bonds, which could be embedded into a SEZ to improve new project viability.
“I am very supportive of Special Economic Zones – I think we could make it very simple,” Mr Cotter told North West Weekly at the launch of the Mount Isa City Council Future Ready Economy Roadmap.
“Currently we have to pay tens of millions of dollars to the government in environmental bonds before we can even start mining – we could just get rid of them entirely or make businesses buy an insurance product.
“You’ve got a lot of government overreach impacting our ability to fund projects – we haven’t been able to drill for the past 10 years, so no wonder they aren’t finding new copper deposits.
“Government could give us (industry) a 150 per cent tax rebate on research and development and we will then go out and fund new things.
“The government could give us a tax rebate on tailings and give us a tax rebate on reinvesting in community.
“We just need to get back to basics.”
Mr Cotter said there had been more than 40 reports created in the past five years that studied the economic potential of the North West, which meant lobbying efforts had to now be directed at getting policy action from government.
However, he said this could only be achieved if industry and local government “hunt as a pack”.
“The difficulty we face now is getting the state and federal governments to stop planning and start doing,” he said.
“I have a problem when the government takes money in royalties and promises to give the money back to the communities, but the money never arrives.
“Well, the government has had their shot and so I say give it back to us (industry) so we can reinvest it in the community.
“But we can only do that if we hunt as one pack when taking a message to Canberra or Brisbane.”