The Mount Isa businessman will continue to lead the regional development group after he was elected unopposed at MITEZ’s 20th general meeting in Townsville on Friday.

About 40 local government and industry leaders attended the meeting, which was hosted by Townsville City Council and opened with a welcoming speech by Townsville mayor Jenny Hill.

MITEZ chief executive Glen Graham reported the group finished the year in a strong position due to ongoing support of its members and by successfully completing its 2013-14 projects. 

Mr Glasson said the need for increased water storages had become quite an issue in recent times.

He said things were becoming critical for the mines and communities such as Cloncurry and Mount Isa.

‘‘With funds from the proposed leasing of some of the state’s assets, together with the Commonwealth government’s plans for developing the north, this is a once-in-a-generation opportunity for an investment program to build some new infrastructure to further develop the North West,’’ he said.

‘‘Once you have a reliable water supply assured, you can then focus on transport, energy, labour and start building the next generation of mines that will produce additional wealth from the region.’’

The members of the MITEZ management for 2014-15 include: Mount Isa representative, mayor Tony McGrady; Corridor Shire’s Cr Belinda Murphy; Townsville City representative Cr Tony Parsons; Industry, Drew Penny, BHP; government owned corporations, Michael Mitchell, QR; Secretary, Connie Navarro, Emanate Legal; Treasurer, Cameron Thompson, Queensland Country Credit Union who was also returned for his seventh term as MITEZ treasurer.

ENERGY

MR Graham said a range of topics were covered at the meeting, including a presentation by Jonathan Pavetto from SAS Group highlighting the need to support an alliance of consumers to present a case to the Australian Energy Regulator’s reset of charges by monopoly energy retailers. 

SAS’s presentation demonstrated how the return on investment on their network assets was pushing up electricity prices. 

SAS are forming an alliance of customers to contest this issue as the Energy Regulators’s re-set process is now underway.

RAIL

MOUNT Isa mayor Tony McGrady and Richmond mayor John Wharton raised their disapproval of the Queensland government’s lack of consultation in their decision to drop the sleeper cars and dining facilities from the Inlander rail service. 

They felt despite the state government’s reasons for this decision, an announcement in the same week that $60 million would be spent on up-grading the Roma Street transit centre, was an insult to the people living in regional centres such as the MITEZ corridor.

GAS INDUSTRY

REPRESENTATIVES from Incitec Pivot attended the meeting to highlight the need for securing better domestic gas arrangements for customers and businesses such as Phosphate Hill that is now highly vulnerable to rising gas prices as most of Queensland’s gas would be taken to supply the LNG export industry via the gas trains at Gladstone. 

Tim Lawrence, of Incitec Pivot, explained that gas from the Alice Springs to Darwin gas pipeline would provide another source of supply and could be connected to the existing gas network at Mount Isa and there was also considerable interest shown by the Northern Territory government for the project.

BEEF INDUSTRY 

BOB Mc Donald, of Cloncurry council, gave an overview of the beef industry, the free trade agreement with China concerning live cattle exports and the prospects of building a new abattoir in the North.