John Murphy (Lowe, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

From 30 April I represented the Leader of the Opposition, the Hon. Kevin Rudd, for three days at the 13th Mount Isa Mining Expo. I wish to pay tribute to Mount Isa’s Chamber of Commerce President, Mr Dave Glasson, firstly for the invitation to the mining expo and, secondly, for the great job Mr Glasson does for the chamber and the citizens of Mount Isa. I also acknowledge the great work done by its very popular mayor, His Worship Ron McCullough.

In his opening address at the mining expo, Mr Glasson acknowledged the support of the sponsors and exhibitors. Mr Glasson made some very important observations and, in the short time available to me this morning, I would like to share a little of what he said:

… with all the hype we hear about the good times that every one seems to be enjoying at the moment. I think we need to stop and think for a minute and perhaps just move away from the mining scene to the local scene. A lot of local businesses and organisations and people in general are having trouble keeping up with the boom. By far and away one of the biggest problems we are faced with is the shortage of labour, we hear about it and we are faced with it constantly.

With this labour shortage we see businesses struggling to offer their services in an efficient manner as they would like too, this then leads to services being brought in from out of town. Another problem we are all facing is that of accommodation. With the influx of workers we have seen the availability of accommodation becoming very scarce and this in turn is forcing the price of accommodation through the roof.

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I think the governments both state and federal need to focus a lot more on regional centres, we need investment in some regional infrastructure projects. The Qld government’s economic triangle blue print is a step in the right direction.

Probably two important areas where money needs to be spent on infrastructure in the Mount Isa area are energy & transport.

We need an alternative energy source for this area, at the moment we are struggling to keep up with the demand that we have for power, clear evidence of this is Xstrata’s recent decision to build a 36 megawatt power station just to keep up with increasing demand from their own mine expansion.

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We need an alternative transport source to get export product out of Mount Isa and the surrounding region. It’s been talked about for years but the time really has come for Mount Isa to have a rail line that joins the Adelaide to Darwin rail network.

Another thing that needs some serious overhauling is the Zone allowance system. If we could get this increased and brought back into line in real terms as to what it was when it was first introduced we would create a huge incentive for people to come to regional areas such as Mount Isa.

I would like to salute the work done by the president of the chamber of commerce, Mr Glasson, and also its very popular mayor, as I said earlier, Mr Ron McCullough. I exhort all sides of politics in this chamber to support the citizens of Mount Isa, because Australia is certainly riding on Mount Isa’s back at the moment and will continue to do so for many decades. It is important for all of us living in the cities and elsewhere around Australia to support Mount Isa. (Time expired)