General Business - July 3 2025 Ordinary Meeting

Published on 04 July 2025

Councillor Dan Ballard

I think any of us that are long-time locals understand that this period through the year is when the North West really comes to life and there’s something to do every other day.

So I’ll just highlight a few of those, because there’s so many to go through. I wanted to congratulate Jay Morris and the team at the Mount Isa Race Club for another hugely successful Mount Isa Cup. I have a heavily biased view, but I think racing continues to be one of the cornerstones of our social fabric in town. And it’s great to see the community get out and support the race club when they put on those big events, because there’s a lot of work that goes into it and it’s really rewarding when it’s well supported.

My wife Lacy and daughter Lily went to the screening of “Swan Lake”. Thank you to the staff at the Civic Centre for putting on things like that. It's another thing that you can go to. It was well supported. It was free. I just can’t praise initiatives like that highly enough, when you see a terrific facility being well utilised because we’re expanding the breadth of offerings to accommodate to more and more people. So, well done there and thank you.

I wasn’t able to make it to the Mount Isa Show because I was unwell, but congratulations to those people. That committee – again, there’s a small group of volunteers that pull on a huge body of work to get that done and it’s the community and our residents that benefit from that. So, thank you to them.

The Mount Isa Campdraft is on this weekend (July 2-6). I’d like to wish them well.

I’d just like to take a moment for us to take pause and understand that this is going to be a really tough month. Mount Isa Copper Operations is scheduled to shut its gates this year. It’s going to have a very negative impact on some people in our community.

I think there’s a lot of good things going on as well, but we should be mindful that there’s going to be a lot of folks in our town that are doing it pretty tough. And it’s my hope that Glencore can manage that transition out of that operation as well as possible.

And our thoughts are with those people who will be negatively impacted, but we look to the future with optimism as well.

Councillor John Doyle

It’s been a bit busy the last couple of months. I’ve just been getting around a lot of the school sports events and stuff. The school netball was a pretty good event. It was pretty good to see boys and girls in the team, they’re all getting heavily involved with the netball as well. I had a couple of nephews and nieces playing and friends and family – it was really good to see.

Soccer seems to be pretty lively. I know there’s maybe a bit of shortfall here and there with some numbers on some certain age groups, but they’re making it work by playing up and down grades, just to get those extra games in. All the officials are there.

I’ve been talking to Veronica who runs the basketball and they’re creating some opportunities and some pathways for some kids. So, that’s really good.

The AFL’s still existing. They need numbers for the men especially. So if we can get anybody in the community that wants to go and have a run around, have a play, just get active, please get down there and sign up and get some numbers in there. It’s a good sport. It’s been alive in Mount Isa for a long time.

We just had the under-12s Queensland Representative School Sport rugby league carnival at Alec Inch Oval, which was really good. We went down every day just to support and help the North West boys. It was really good to see.

Whilst they weren’t so successful in the numbers on the scoreboard, they were very successful – their team camaraderie and the way that they banded together and the perseverance, it didn’t deter them at all from turning up every day and giving it their best. So that was unreal.

The junior football’s been great. We’ve got a young fellow in a rugby league academy, Cooper Robertson. He’s in the Australian Indigenous team and played against Victoria, the Northern Territory, and Western Australia. They’ve won all three games. He’s been outstanding. He’s a local boy from here.

The A-grade men’s, we had our grand final as well. Wanderers won that and deservedly so. They were really good, very hard to beat.

We’ve been working closely with the JT Academy, some vulnerable youth, and trying to get them on the right track. The boys have just graduated. The girls have still got a couple of weeks left.

We had the Transition to Success program with Youth Justice. So there are some kids there that have been engaged in some obviously unwelcome activities throughout the community, but what’s very pleasing is that none of those kids reoffended. Maybe one had a little bit of a slip-up, but out of the kids in that program for the entire time, there was little to no reoffending, other than that one kid that had a little bit of a moment. So that was really good.

Queensland Pathways has been successful. They’re up to 25 now per group, so that’s really good. They’re trying to find some work pathways and stuff as well.

The Education Precinct, I’ve been there as well and had some meetings with the Mental Health in Primary School program, trying to refine that and make sure we make that work as best as we can. It’s something that’s been needed for a long time. In 2003, when I was in education, they were talking about it way back then. So, I really want to make this work. We’ve got the right people in the right roles throughout all the schools.

We’ve got NAIDOC Week coming up, so that’s going to be a big thing. We need to get out and support all my people, all our Indigenous people, and try and collectively get out there together.

Deadly Choices has been doing some stuff at the hospital. Some young people from Spinifex State College have been doing some works up there, some within the nursing and midwifery and different things like that, and that’s been really successful.

I’ve also been working with some vulnerable youth. We’ve got a lot of people in this community that are struggling, which leads into what we’re talking about with the MICO shutdown and stuff like that.

Not only does it affect the workers, but it also affects the families and the people in the household. I’ve been on board and Deputy Mayor Kim Coghlan’s been on there as well.

AIDRWA, domestic violence, family violence. I spoke at that, and AIDRWA are doing some really good things as well. So if there’s anyone that is susceptible to domestic/family violence, please get over to AIDRWA and have a yarn with them.

I’ve been advocating for random drug and alcohol testing within our schools and our service providers – anyone that’s working with vulnerable youth or vulnerable people in the community. It’s not to out anybody at all – it’s not like, oh, you’re on drugs or you’re on alcohol. It’s exactly for the reasons that have been happening lately with a few suicides.

We’ve got people that aren’t dealing very well with certain issues and certain traumas in the community, and I really want to see this come to fruition, so that if there is anybody that’s on drugs or alcohol and they need help, then we can help them – we can actually get them into the right spaces in the right places to find the right help.

Because like we said, a lot of us are dealing with things privately, quietly until such time as we take that drastic step and then it becomes public and it’s too late.

So if we can get that random drug and alcohol testing up throughout all of our services and stuff, we might be able to catch a few people before it’s too late. That’s my hope and that’s my goal.

Especially with the MICO stuff now, I’d really like to see anybody reaching out for as much support as you can. There’s a lot of support in the community. So, just reach out. Please talk to anybody. Talk to somebody. Just talk.

Councillor Travis Crowther

There’s been a lot happening around the city. With the Go Green Isa Day, that was quite a successful event. I congratulate the team on what they achieved with that. There were lot of people there lining up to get all the free plants and that.

There are some good events that we’ve been putting on and are getting well attended.

The citizenship day, the pride you see in those people when they get given their citizenship for Australia – something we take for granted – they really take pride. I have to congratulate the Deputy Mayor on her pronunciation of a lot of the names. She did a great job.

To the staff and being able to present that, I think the lamingtons are always a treat for them. I think the Deputy Mayor really appreciated that they were there for them and I’m sure they’ll make sure they’re there next time for us.

With the events coming up, don’t forget we’ve got the big events, starting with the Isa Street Festival, the Mailman Express, and the Mount Isa Mines Rodeo.

We’re going to have a lot of tourists coming into town. You can already see it now. We’re talking with the team at Outback at Isa, and I think the numbers are up. It was a very slow start to the season. I think especially with all the flooding, that really put off a lot of people.

With the promotion that the Outback Queensland Tourism Association put on, and then with ourselves, we’re starting to see those numbers come back. And with our Tourism team working with Michelle and that there, we’re doing some really good pushes for tourism and it’s going to pay off when we see the numbers and especially the caravans on the road at the moment.

Like we said, everyone’s a tourism ambassador. We say “see the other side of Queensland”, but I’d say it’s “the better side of Queensland”.

I just want to congratulate Councillor James Coghlan on his “7in700” fundraising event. He came home and there was a great crowd, and it just shows the support that Mount Isa gives to the people that give back to the city. So, well done to Jamie.

Councillor John Tully

I just helped out the other day down there at the rugby league, and one of their comments was “the first time the shire has done something for them”, and I thought that was pretty good, for the Mount Isa City Council to be able to put something on for them, which is the ratepayers’ money.

And I also helped at the Mount Isa Show. They said their numbers were up on every single day – I thought they were too, which is great to see. They were exceptionally happy with the whole weekend from what the committee stated to me.

The rodeo’s coming along really well, we’ve got most things in place. It’s only a few weeks away and it’ll be all action plus.

We’ve changed the area for the Isa Hotel to be putting on the entertainment (at the Isa Street Festival), which I think is a big bonus. It’s something that Mount Isa City Council don’t have that cost there.

I’ve got to stay confident because of my business that we run, but we’ve got no rentals in town. So everyone talks about the negativity, but we’ve got to stay positive, and we’re finding that right across town there’s about 20 to 30 available rentals.

There’s the Queensland Ambulance Service looking for accommodation. There’s Queensland Health looking for accommodation. So we’re seeing no indication yet – and we hope that it stays that way.

But at the moment, Mount Isa is going really well. So we’ve just got to keep bouncing off walls and just keep telling people that we are still alive and we’re still going really strong.

There’s houses under contract … so people are still buying. So, as a community, I think we’ve got to stay.

We know the copper part of the mines are shutting and we’ve all got to be alert to that. But I think we’ve still got to bounce off.

And there’s been $300 million spent a year by government organisations in the last three years. So we actually have to advertise the good stuff as well as be alert to the negative stuff.

Councillor James Coghlan

The past weekend and this weekend are good examples of what sporting events bring to our town, and the more support we can give our sporting associations the better. I know it costs money, but the money they bring into our economy is far greater.

Over six days at the QRSS rugby league State championships we had 500 people, 500 guests that came to this town and stayed here for a week, and they went away with a very different appreciation of our town.

We were able to overturn that negative press from the southern media and get our message out. They spent money here and every one of them had a great time.

This weekend we’ve got the Mount Isa Campdraft, and while many competitors will have their own accommodation with their floats and so forth, they spend lots of money in Mount Isa, because a lot of them come from rural areas and stations.

The ladies book hairdressing appointments months in advance, beauty salon appointments, and all those other things that ladies do that are a mystery to men but we’re told are essential.

So there is a lot of money spent here – food, vehicle repairs, supplies, etc. – bringing money into our town.

The recent Mount Isa Cup attracts a huge crowd and money spent on dresses, hair, makeup.

Having these types of events brings people to our town and it’s the best advertising we can have, because it tells people Mount Isa is still here and we’re going well.

It was also good to see people who don’t really follow the sport come along to have a look at those kids (at the QRSS rugby league State championships). Some of the people I saw, I’ve never seen at a rugby league game before. But they came to support our local boys, and the biggest cheer of the whole carnival was when they scored their first try in the corner – and it lifted the roof off the grandstand. It was fantastic.

So, anything that brings our community together is good. So the more we can do to support these associations, the better for the liveability of our town.

It’s getting harder and harder to get volunteers. So anything we can do to assist those associations that are working hard to survive, we need to.

I encourage people to speak to councillors with any of their issues or thank-yous. The Cuppa with the Councillors today saw a couple of issues raised, some of which I’m against, but others were something I hadn’t thought of.

It’s been 12 months since I began trying to get athletics relocated from Sunset Oval to Alexandra Oval, and I think we need to be careful we don’t wait for a feasibility study and what comes out of that, because that could be years away.

The other thing I wanted to just mention was some of our government agencies, where they’re located. We need to be careful, because one has relocated and it’s near a school and there are a large number now of needles which are being found around that school, which we need to work on.

I’d just like to thank the community for the support they gave me for the run. I was just really humbled by the people that turned up and the support.

Fiona and I always said that you give to your community because you get much more out of it than what you give. And that was proven to me over and over during the run – the amount of things people gave and the support they gave.

I’m so proud to be a part of this town and I love this place and the more we can do together, you’ve just got to ask.

Deputy Mayor Kim Coghlan

I’d just like to say a big thank you to Hannah Clarke – she was the coordinator on the ground for the 11 to 12 QRSS rugby league State championships and she did an amazing amount of work leading up to it.

It wasn’t just over that carnival – it was for 12 months. Same as Marie Hart, who’s the RDO for the school North West Sport. Congratulations to all of them, and thank you to the councillors for doing the barbecue, because it was really well received by all the visitors.

I had the privilege on Sunday to go to a surprise 70th retirement party for Dr Chris King, who has retired from obstetrics at Mount Isa Base Hospital. I’ve been thinking about it since then, and that we lost other doctors as well who’ve left Mount Isa Base Hospital.

Just from a community point of view, I know I said it to Dr King on the weekend, but a big thank you to those doctors that come out here, because those doctors didn’t come out for one or two years. They come out for decades.

Their knowledge and their experience that they passed on to medical students that come up here to work, and mainly to patients as well, it’s just been so good. So a big thank you to them from us all as community members.

A big thank you and travel safe to Tonka and Ranita, who have left Mount Isa to relocate over to WA. I hope they have a very safe journey over there. I know it won’t be the last we’ll see of him, and he was probably one of the best-looking Rodeo Queens we ever had.

I hope everything goes well for them over there, because they did give a great amount to the Mount Isa community. I was just so pleased to see that Ranita’s last Mount Isa Show was a great show. Everyone had a great time. So, thank you very much.

I got to both of those Western Cup rugby league games and they both ended in a tie, and anyone would think the Cowboys were playing. The tension was that high.

It was a great event, and we did get lots of feedback from the community that was visiting on what a great town they thought Mount Isa was. It was the first time they’d visited for some of them, and everyone had a fabulous time.