COAL AND COMMUNITY – Living with the boom
Good morning everyone and thank you for the opportunity to address you today.
For those that don’t already know me, my name is Peter Freeleagus and I am the
Mayor of Belyando Shire, which includes the two townships of Clermont and
Moranbah.
We currently have 5 major coal mines in our shire which are BHP - Goonyella
/Riverside, Broadmeadows, Peak Downs, Anglo - Moranbah North and Rio Tinto
Blair Athol mine. With other Mines planned in the not-so-distant future. But we’re
definitely not newcomers to the mining game.
Clermont may have been founded on the sheep’s back, but it didn’t boom until its
gold and copper mines took off in the 1800s. Eventually coal was added to the
list with the opening of our shire’s first coal mine, Blair Athol.
But it was not until 1971 and the arrival of the Utah Development Company that
coal became King in Belyando. Utah created the township of Moranbah solely to
house the workers at its new Goonyella Mine, and the town soon grew to
accommodate workers from nearby Peak Downs Mine.
At one stage over 10,000 people called Moranbah home and its residents knew it
as a great place for families. Mine workers received good pay and the mines’
roster systems enabled workers to return to their homes each day, with the eight-
hour shifts also enabling people to play sport, take part in community events and
spend important time with friends and family.
Thirty years on, Coal is still King and shows no signs of abdicating. The current
coal mining boom is bigger and better than anything before and the economic
benefits are far-reaching. There’s more jobs, higher pays, more people, extra
dollars for local business, bigger returns for those in the local property market,
billions of dollars for the country’s export coffers and plenty of tax revenue for the
State Government.
But with this increased mining activity has come a range of social and
infrastructure challenges which both the community and my Council are
constantly struggling to overcome.
For example, in recent years there has been a move within most coal mining
operations to 12-hour shifts and this has resulted in a significant shift in the
make-up of our community. While many families are still based in Moranbah, the
changed shift arrangements have seen many others relocate to centres such as
Mackay, where Mum and the kids spend at least half the week alone and Dad
works away.
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Moranbah now has a considerable population of workers who seek basic
accommodation only during working days and then head out of town. Even if
Mum and the kids want to live with Dad, the chance of them finding affordable
accommodation is very low as demand far exceeds supply. The implications of
this have included plenty of traffic on the Peak Downs Highway, the departure of
many families, an increase in the proportion of men in our populations, and a
drop in participation levels at sporting clubs and community organizations
In Moranbah, the cost of living has sky rocketed, as accommodation has become
scarce and housing prices and rents have climbed to rates that far exceed capital
city prices. There’s also a push for more industrial space, with increasing
numbers of support industries keen to open their doors in Belyando. A
widespread skills shortage has fuelled big pay packets, attracting workers from
other industries and making it hard for businesses both on the Central Highlands
and further a field in Mackay to attract and keep staff. Council is no exception to
this. And of course each new mining project adds additional stress to existing
services such as doctors, dentists, water resources, shopping facilities, child
care, water resources, and sewerage facilities and did I mention water
resources? The list goes on.
All of these issues have implications for Council and are a result of mining
activity. But your average mining company’s focus is solely a business one, so
they give little thought to the impacts they have on the community. They often fail
to realize that Moranbah and Clermont are not capital cities where you can just
go to the next suburb for a service or facility. We are country towns physically
isolated from urban facilities and we certainly don’t have the budget of a major
centre.
From the Council’s point of view, coal companies are slow to approach us about
expanding or creating new mines and tend to leave discussions to the last
minute, when they expect Council to respond immediately with its limited
resources to meet their needs . It’s hard to plan for the Shire’s needs when
mining companies keep their plans to themselves until the day they land on our
doorstep, ready to start work. You can’t just buy a bigger sewerage treatment
plant at Mitre 10. All of this takes considerable planning, budgeting and
construction lead time.
We are also hampered by constraints beyond our control, such as Native Title. If
Native Title is involved it is a very slow and complicated process for a Council,
and we do not have the same considerable economic resources as many mining
companies. Nor do we seem to wield the same kind of pull with State and
Federal tiers of Government, which have welcomed the economic benefits of the
mining boom, but wiped their hands of its social and infrastructure impacts.
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Often I feel I’m living in a state of paranoia. Is it just my imagination, or are the
State and Federal Governments bending over backwards to help our mining
friends, with little regard for the people who voted them in?
For example, you’ve no doubt read about our stoush with the State Government
regarding freeing up land for residential housing in Moranbah. To give you some
background to this story: we currently have an accommodation crisis in
Moranbah as a result of new mines opening in the area and expansions at
existing operations. In an effort to tackle this housing shortage, Council
supported an application for a new 350 block residential development in
Moranbah, adjacent to existing homes.
However after a protest by a mining company, the State Government quickly
called-in the development for review and ultimately overturned our decision. This
was despite the fact that the application met all Town Planning requirements and
the land forming part of our Future Urban zone. This was the same Town Plan
approved by the State Government in 1995 at which time the conflict between
urban expansion and coal reserves were known. In our view, and that of our legal
advisors, the gazetted town plan clearly represented a compromise accepted by
all parties.
Not only does this decision do nothing to solve the accommodation crisis but it
raises new concerns. If we can’t build a house at the end of an existing
residential street because it is earmarked for mining, does this mean that our
families can look forward to a mine going up a few hundred metres from their
homes? We work in the mines – we know what they’re like and we don’t want our
families exposed to those sorts of environments, day-in, day-out.
The prospect of mines on the town’s doorstep is a situation that Council finds
totally unacceptable and will fight vigorously. Now let’s be realistic. I work in a
mine, as do the vast majority of those workers living in our shire. We all know
what is involved, we all know what a mine site looks like and its impacts. We are
not some naïve group of people with no experience in this area.
We all realize that Moranbah would not exist if it were not for the mines and you
will hear no-one grizzling about the location of the current mine sites and their
impacts on the township. Moranbah was originally established a considerable
distance from these ventures and it has been an arrangement that has worked
well for the past 30 years.
However, we have grave concerns that efforts to locate mines in close proximity
to homes will have far reaching negative effects on our quality of life. I and other
Belyando Shire Councillors have just returned from a visit to the mining
communities of Singleton and Muswellbrook in NSW where we met with parties
from both sides of the fence when it comes to mining ventures located next to
towns. Our findings have only strengthened our resolve to fight efforts to
establish similar arrangements in Belyando and we hope that the State
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Government will fully consider Environmental Impact Studies and the
community’s wishes before approving such projects.
But of course the major issue affecting both mining development and the quality
of life in Belyando is water. Basically, we don’t have it and we can’t just click our
fingers to make it appear so that a mining company can undertake a new project.
Our residents are already on tight water restrictions and are making sacrifices to
help us manage the situation. For example, Council has recently announced that
it can no longer approve applications for swimming pools and sprinklers have
long been banned.
We are now telling those businesses wishing to start up new projects in our shire
to come back when they can tell us where the water is going to come from.
Of course mining company reps get very annoyed when I tell them this – but
what else can be done? State and Federal Governments need to understand
that their lack of support where it counts – the dollars – has implications and will
eventually eat into their tax revenue. Perhaps when it starts to hit them in the
back pocket they will make realistic plans to address this major problem.
The local Council is not in a position to build new dams or pipelines. These are
major infrastructure issues that must be addressed at a higher level. And while
Council welcomes the new Burdekin pipeline that is scheduled to come online
later this year, it is just a stop gap measure for the benefit of mining operations.
Council could never afford the cost of this water supply and we feel this option
displays no foresight or vision for the future. Dams are the future and to build
dams you need vision, something sorely lacking in many spheres of Government.
And of course all of this was made even more frustrating with the recent
announcement of the Queensland Government’s plan to make the southeast
corner drought proof. I don’t know about you, but that made me feel so much
better to know that Brisbane families will again be able to safely keep their lawns
green, while I turn away major economic development in my shire because we
don’t have enough water to offer you when you drop by for a cup of tea. Thank
goodness for beer.
So the upshot of all this is, coal is booming, there’s plenty of work in Belyando
and more mines are on the horizon. But Council is struggling to provide the
infrastructure necessary to service this boom while at the same time protecting
the quality of life for shire residents. It’s a delicate balancing act, but one that
we’re committed to. We are exploring all avenues and through efforts such as
the Moranbah Growth Management Group we’re hoping to find some solutions.
Council, the mines and State Government are spending half a million dollars to
develop a town plan which will look at land needs – residential, light commercial
and heavy industrial – as well as water, roads, social needs and a range of other
issues. At the end of the day let’s hope it’s money well spent because we don’t
just want suggestions - we want and need results.
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I’d like to finish up today by making it clear that the belyando Shire Council is in
no way anti-mine, anti-industry or anti-development. But we are for
RESPONSIBLE development, done in a way which enhances our Shire and
takes into consideration the fact that people live here. It is not just a mining
camp. It is our home. We love it. And we need industry to respect this and work
with us to ensure a good outcome for everyone involved.
Thank You
ENDS
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