Hundreds dressed up to the nines for the Zinc Goes Pink at George Fisher mine at the start of October. The event was hosted by Mount Isa Mines to support cancer charities and was hosted by Kerri-Anne Kennerly. Sanctum Media Spa Retreat paid $6200 for the naming rights to a pink 50 tonne Caterpillar loader now renamed “Sanctum”. Charity recipient North West Queensland Breast Cancer Support Group president Trish Olsen called it a “once in a lifetime event”.
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Tributes flowed for Winton Mayor Graham “Butch” Lenton who died on October 1 after a long battle with cancer. “Visionary” is the word used by Greg Hallam, the CEO of the Local Government Association of Queensland and long-time personal friend, to describe the man who led his community towards a strong future fuelled by tourism, renewable energy and telecommunications as well as strong rural industries. “He was a down-to-earth mechanic with a vision for what his community could be and he made it happen,” Mr Hallam said. The LGAQ will offer a $10,000 Butch Lenton Memorial Bush Councils innovation award annually from next year, in his memory.
On October 7 a determined crowd braved the light showers on Saturday evening to attend Mount Isa’s first Light the Night. The Mount Isa community united in solidarity with the friends and family of those affected by leukaemia and held lanterns as they walked around Tony White Oval.
A Mount Isa man was arrested in Bali in October after marijuana mixed with tobacco and the sedative Diazepam was allegedly found in his suitcase at Bali's international airport. A customs official told Fairfax Media that Joshua James Baker claimed the plastic bag containing suspected marijuana and tobacco had been given to him by his girlfriend and did not belong to him.
ADG Corporation took out the top honour in the 2017 Northern Outback business awards. The Mica Creek Rd-based company which specialises in skilled labour hire, machine operation and contracts took out the business of the year award and two other awards on the gala night.
The baton bearers were announced for the Commonwealth Games Queen’s Baton Relay and there will be 44 bearers in Mount Isa on March 6, 12 in Cloncurry the same day, five in Birdsville a day later and 13 in Winton on March 11. The relay goes to Hughenden March 12 where there will be 10 relayers and also Prairie the same day with six relayers.
New Century announced in October it was restarting the Century zinc mine in 2018. New Century bought the mine from MMG who closed it down in 2015. When it re-opens it will again be one of the world’s largest zinc mines.
At the end of the month, Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk announced a state election for November 25 with a four week campaign. Mount Isa and the north west will be in the new seat of Traeger and member for Mount Isa and KAP state leader Robbie Katter was confident to win the seat from Labor’s Danielle Slade, the LNP’s Ron Bird, the Greens Peter Relph and independents Sarah Isaacs and Craig Scriven.
There was sad news for Cloncurry in November when popular doctor Bryan Connor left the town with his partner after 11 years. Dr Conno was proud of the way he had built up the Flinders Medical Centre into a “top tier, high quality, training general practice”. The 2017 citizen of the year said Curry helped him become what he always wanted “a real community GP with a hospital.” The couple will now move somewhere “cooler and greener”.
Cloncurry also hosted the Outback Tourism Awards in November. Richmond won two awards, McKinlay Shire won three while Forsayth’s Goldfields Hotel won best outback hotel and Mount Isa Rodeo won the best festival/event.
Around 500 people came to the Civic Centre in November for the first Mount Isa Kids Expo. Organiser Cathy Bimrose of Commerce North West said numbers were on a par with the previous year’s Baby and Toddler Expo but the number of exhibitors was up to 30 and she hailed the changing of the age range. “Hopefully next year more businesses will jump on board and allow this event to grow,” she said.
Hughenden won the award for Queensland’s tidiest town of 2107. Keep Queensland Beautiful said Hughenden’s submission was outstanding. “Our tidy towns judges were extremely impressed by the sheer number of projects undertaken in this outback town,” they said. This was Hughenden’s first win and completes the trifecta of winners on the Dinosaur Trail with Richmond and Winton (2016 winner).
Meanwhile the election ballot draw for Traeger put hot favourite Robbie Katter at number 1. Following the KAP state leader on the ballot were 2. Ron Bird (LNP), 3 Craig Scriven (Ind), 4 Sarah Isaacs (Ind), 5 Danielle Slade (ALP) and 6. Peter Relph (Greens). Late candidate and Mount Isa boilermaker Craig Scriven said he was running an open ticket while Mornington shire deputy mayor Sarah Isaacs was raising issue for her indigenous community.
MMG’s Dugald River formally opened in November. The company's CEO Jerry Jiao and Chinese backers came to Cloncurry for the opening of the $550m project which will be one of the world’s top 10 zinc mines at full capacity which is 1.7 million tonnes a year.
Remembrance Day had added significance in Mount Isa this year with a flag-raising ceremony Sunset Cemetery where three new metal signs were unveiled, one for each branch of the armed forces. They commemorate the 230 known Navy, Army and Airforce personnel buried at the cemetery. School leaders from St Joseph’s were there to tell the stories of some of the men buried there.
Five of the six Traeger candidates attended a debate forum organised by the North West Star and ABC North West Queensland on the Tuesday before election. All bar the Greens candidate were present but unsurprisingly much of the focus was on Robbie Katter who is favourite to win the seat. Mr Katter would not commit to serving the full three year term when asked. Other hot-button issues were the cost of flights to the region, youth crime, mining in the region and high unemployment.
The election itself went as predicted. Robbie Katter comfortably won Traeger with 64% of the vote while Shane Knuth also won Hill. With the KAP hoping to pick up a third seat at Hinchinbrook, the party looks to be in a strong position after another close state-wide election. Labor were ahead of the LNP on the night and look the more likely to win but neither side would claim victory or defeat as yet.
With Qantas facing criticism in our region over high cost of fares and poor service including numerous cancellations, the North West Star requested an interview with the local regional manager, a request which was turned down by the airline. The airline issued a media statement to say they were going to use larger aircraft on some routes and use Alliance Airlines to operate some flights until March 2018. Their message on the cost of flights was less hopeful with the Airline hiding behind tired excuses as to why flights were so expensive. The cost of air travel to the regions will be subject of a Senate inquiry due to report by March 2018.
Gavin Baskett was named the new mayor of Winton. Mr Basket, a sitting councillor won the mayoral by-election held to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Butch Lenton. Mr Basket defeated three other candidates to win the election.
The Mayors of Mount Isa and Barkly Region have come together in a new alliance called the Mount Isa Tennant Creek Cross Border Commission. A meeting of the mayors in December in Mount Isa discussed commonality including the Jemena Northern Gas Pipeline, the proposed Mount Isa-Tennant Creek rail and tourism on the Overlander Way. In the same week, Mount Isa joined the Australian Mining Cities Alliance with Broken Hill and Kalgoorlie-Boulder to lobby governments and industry about issues related to similar mining cities across Australia.
The new owners of Century zinc mine have outlined plans to re-open the mine in 2018. MMG closed down the mine in 2015 but new owners New Century plan to re-open it as a 500,000 tonnes a year zinc concentrate producers for six years. It will be the fifth largest zinc mine in the world on re-opening.
In December scientists discovered a new species of marsupial lion in Riversleigh World Heritage Area that went extinct 19 million years ago. The species named Wakaleo Schouteni for paleoartist Peter Schouten was a predator that stalked the rainforest, weighing 23kgs and about the size of a dog. The discovery came a year after the fossil of a kitten-sized marsupial lion was found in the same site.