A month on from the visit of Prime Minister Cloncurry Mayor Greg Campbell is still seeing the positives as the town and wider region slowly recovers from February's floods.
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"Scott Morrison is genuine in his desire to support people, not just Cloncurry but the whole flood-affected region," Cr Campbell said.
"And that's the support rural and regional Australia can expect from this Prime Minister."
Cr Campbell sits on the board of the North Queensland Livestock Industry Recovery Agency which the PM created in the immediate aftermath of the floods.
"We had a board meeting in Cloncurry the presence of the Prime Minister and that was the first one he was able to attend," he said.
"Obviously there were time constraints that day because we had a crowd that wanted to meet him but we have another board meeting at the end of June.
"The idea I gathered from our last meeting with the Prime Minister was he wants the agency to be there to help plot the future for the beef industry as well as the immediate task of getting the industry back on its feet."
Cr Campbell said producers have not been "racing in" to claim the funding grants announced by Mr Morrison.
They have two years to do and a lot of them are still in the middle of mustering to see what the full impact is," he said. "Some are still finding cattle from two or three properties away and some are finding their losses may be greater than what they estimated they were."
Cr Campbell said the impact was also felt by town businesses.
"Those direct industry businesses are going to be doing it tough for a while because their main customers is the grazing industry and they've lost a heap of their income," he said.
"But there has been some livestock transporters who have been busy because there is a lot of work coming from the Barkly Tablelands and shifting cattle south and we've got to work together.
"If people are restocking from the south, talk to your normal carrier and especially if they are down there and can get back-loading it's good for both parties."
Cr Campbell also welcomed the new arrangement where MMG Dugald River have opened up its Townsville charter flights to Cloncurry residents saying it was part of ongoing discussions.
"We always prefer to see more staff locally but we strong encouraged them to have their flight on Tuesday to smooth out the (Wednesday) impact at the airport," he said. "You can already book a seat through Ernest Henry mine and we've had discussions with Eloise copper mine, they operate a jet service on Thursday."
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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.
