Mount Isa City Council says their economic development strategy will be the cornerstone to the city’s ongoing success and long-term sustainability.
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The three year strategy, first unveiled in 2017, details 30 ways Mount Isa can boost its economy and Mayor Joyce McCulloch said they were well on the way to meeting that timetable with a number of projects underway.
“These include the Tennant Creek cross-border commission and that is proving to be an exciting and viable collaboration between the Tennant Creek Council and Mount Isa City Council and there will be a lot of opportunities ahead,” Cr McCulloch said.
“Unfortunately they are hard to see at the moment but they will roll out over the next five to 10 years.”
Projects the two cities have in common are the gas pipeline, the proposed rail link and the exploratory work on the mineral wealth of the Isa Superbasin.
Cr McCulloch said she and the CEO met with Tennant Creek officials in Canberra recently where they also met representatives of Geoscience Australia who are driving the exploration push.
“Geoscience Australia is such an exciting place, there’s so much opportunity out there, they do all the scientific exploration and the mapping of resources under and above the ground,” she said.
“Their type of mapping is the first of its kind in the world and it will be great to see the outcome.”
The Mayor said more work needed to be done to push the rail link which the council have been lobbying for 18 months.
“A lot of that data will soon be outdated if they don’t do anything with it, the findings are sitting on the Minister’s desk.”
Another key item in the Economic Development Strategy is the proposed transport hub on Mount Isa’s northern outskirts.
“We’ve done the feasibility study on that a couple of months ago and we are up to sorting out land access and the land tenure,” she said.
“Once we’ve done that we can progress on this.”
Mining remains a cornerstone of the economy as the city comes out of the downturn and the Mayor said the Mining Cities Alliance (Kalgoorlie, Broken Hill and Mount Isa) would be another strategic imperative.
“Out of that I’ve been invited to sit on the 2030 Resources Task Force,” she said.
“The government wants to put a policy framework around the competitiveness of mining in Australia.”
Derek Barry
Editor of the North West Star Mount Isa since January 2016. Prior to that, an editor at several regional southern Queensland newspapers. Passionate about telling local stories. Comes with a strange accent to due an Irish accident of birth.
Editor of the North West Star Mount Isa since January 2016. Prior to that, an editor at several regional southern Queensland newspapers. Passionate about telling local stories. Comes with a strange accent to due an Irish accident of birth.
