Labor’s plan to trade-off our critical minerals against Trump’s tariffs would not be viable for US mining companies due to a lack of affordable power, a third-world road and rail network and the high cost of living in western Queensland.
“Donald Trump would need to supply an extension cord and a shovel before mining critical minerals here,” Member for Traeger Robbie Katter said.
Mt Isa copper mines closed down recently and the smelter’s future is also grim, threatening 17,000 direct and indirect jobs in the region and at Townsville copper refinery.
Copper mining and smelting at Mt Isa is largely controlled by Glencore a foreign-owned company which returned $2.2 billion to its shareholders this year, therefore asking taxpayers to stump up funds for necessary upgrades was a “bit rich” according to Mr Katter, a stalwart for the Mt Isa region.
“Here we are, with the copper smelter; if it falls, it’s a house of cards – the fertiliser plant, the rail, the next generation of miners who want to help Australia benefit from the $700 billion in resources which are in the ground in the North West – that all goes if the smelter goes,” Mr Katter said.
There is still no word from the federal or state governments how either plans to save Queensland’s hard rock mining industry, while Glencore plans to shut down the smelter.
Nor is there any definite word from Powerlink about extending the Copperstring powerline project from Hughenden to Mt Isa after massive billion dollar blowouts caused in part by Labor’s red, green and black tape.
Powerlink has since advised it would be better to build the transmission line from Townsville to Hughenden before extending it to Mount Isa — a backflip on the original plan to first build west from Hughenden.
“We’ve put up with a lot of signs of gross incompetence, this in the nail in the coffin, the government can no longer ignore this issue,” Mr Katter said.
There’s plenty of construction companies out there that could build this faster and progress,” he said.
“We’re almost two years in and all we have are half-built dongas and an interpretive centre in Townsville — how did that become the priority?”
The frustrated state MP said the vast critical mineral deposits in the Mt Isa and Cloncurry region needed a reliable and affordable power supply to open up copper, lead, zinc and gold deposits.
There are around eight smaller copper mines operating in the region which are entirely dependent on the smelter for processing.
“I get so frustrated when I talk about nation building, and wealth generating projects and people think it’s all about us in Mount Isa or other remote parts of Queensland. This is as much about the future of Australia’s sovereign capabilities in manufacturing and value adding, as it is the future of Mount Isa,” Mr Katter said.
“Australia simply cannot let strategic infrastructure such as the Mount Isa Smelter fail and be shut down by a multinational trading company who do not share our appetite for preserving critical industry.
“The smelter’s future operation is vital for Australia to play its destined role in the global copper boom that’s playing out before our eyes. It should not be determined by a spreadsheet of a multination commodity trader.
“We need more copper to be produced in the next 25 years than has ever been produced by mankind – and we’re going to let this close? Not on my watch!”
Glencore has confirmed it was currently reviewing a “detailed offer … of support for the copper smelter and refinery” from the Queensland government.
A spokesman said the company was “grateful for this offer of assistance” but noted a “quite significant” economic gap remained.
“Bridging it will require support from both Queensland and federal government,” they said.
“At present we don’t have anything on the table from the Federal Government but we look forward to engaging further with Minister (Tim) Ayres in the coming weeks.”
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Howard Wright
August 31, 2025 at 2:24 pm, said:
“Tony B & Jase:
“I wouldn’t want one looking after me in hospital that’s for sure””
Yeah Howard the awake are seeing many programed disturbing distractions, my thoughts I wrote at 3am this morning before my task was ingaged for today that will hopefully be of value in time to come, was to try to help people understand the amount of regulatory pressures that forced Australia businesses/mining companies go under to make way for foreign companies to take over with a completely different regulatory framework and special visas issued to push Australian citizens further into the grave.
Go to any hospital, and you will hear pommy/Indian accents, look at main roads, Qld Vic roads and find an Australian engineer? Also, find a road without pot holes in Queensland or Victoria?
Ring a government agency and you think you have an Indian call centre, but they are all in office buildings here in Australia and are absolutely rude, unhelpful, and add to unessasary costs and failures.
Furthermore on the hospital take over from special visa holders from the UK who are Indian trained nurses and doctors I have formally written to the senior board members of Cairns and Hinterland Hospital and Health Service with proof of malpractice with wrong lims removed, patients outcomes and Medicare fraud. The response was basically please give us time to investigate the claims, So I contacted the CEOs directly ( using skills from a prior life job) and let’s say they shat themselves and offered me pretty much anything I wanted to drop the issues. However, I told them to GFYS and have continued to collect malpractice reports.
The plan is clear to me, the scumbag government, and are in full swing to extinguish the Aboriginals and Anglo Saxon population in Australia.
And jumping up and down or exchanging information on socials marching around waving flags will achieve absolutely nothing.
Here is why, let’s go back to say 1988, expo! Say there were 10 homes in the street; at least 4 of them homes had an oxy & acetylene kit, some form of mill tool, wood shed, chooks, and so forth.
Now, there are say 60 dwellings in the street, and you be lucky to find a hammer and screwdriver. ( but they have an application on a phone to tell them how to wipe ya ass and can successfully google how to unroll the dunny paper)
Unfortunately, we have little or no MEN left and very few trailblazers that will be Australian’s only hope.
Tony B & Jase:
“I wouldn’t want one looking after me in hospital that’s for sure”
You most certainly wouldn’t Tony… I have recently been a patient in a couple of smaller hospitals in N. QLD and can attest to what you were told. And yes, it also applies to most Indian doctors. ‘Poorly trained’? No. ‘Incompetent’ doesn’t even touch it. They’re actually dangerously inept.
Thanks to your comment Tony / Jase, I’m beginning to understand why.
They let them (PAY THEM to come in) and let them take any jobs away from Australians, even when they’re clearly incapable of doing any of them. 😠
The band-aid “solution” would be to quickly throw up a few coal-fired power stations, however a solution is not sought. Consider ownership and funding of Queensland Inc. Previously it was “owned” by the Crown, under which sat QE2 signing the documents. Refer to videos by “ThePeople’sVoice” to confirm the royal interests were shifted to Swissyland, we imagine for a “stake” in the forthcoming BIS system. The BIS system is for Global slavery, hand-to-mouth empty bank balance lifestyle, no middle class. Sir Queir of the House of Commoners says he would rather be in Swissyland, getting his instructions from interesting people at the WEF. Everything done at arm’s length, by corporate emissaries who have adapted to full-time business suits.
On the ground, Swissy’s Glencore is pulling out the plug at Mt. Isa. The land titles in Australia have converted to digital copies. The wording has changed from freehold, the land is for the taking. The next step in Swissy’s plan is to get everyone on $2/ hour. First bankrupt everyone already in Australia and at the same time trickle in people from Bangladesh etc., who think $2/ hour is a magnificent rate, since they get food and board organised for them. The reader may be thinking, ha-ha, I get $20/ hour. It doesn’t matter, the direction is down. Pre-fab houses coming in from Swissy’s favourite, the CCP. The ALP is conforming us to the CCP. Eventually nobody will be able to afford their taxes and council rates so they will have to sell their house or have it acquired by one of Swissy’s banking affiliates. Live in a flat where you own the air-space.
Everyone in the government including public servants is not so much acting from blind stoopidity as much as they are self-serving, and they think $50m in the bank with GoldDole+ will see them through. We have these classes with expectations now, the top class does not live in Australia, the governing class are all the ones who were not required to inject, includes governors, MPs, judiciary, high-up public servants and heads of bodies such as Police Chief, internationalist CEO’s etc.
The middle class is being slowly dismembered but this process will reach critical mass one day, who can say exactly when the wheels will come off. It’s the direction we are taking.
Imagine you are a renter and your landlord sold the house to a friend of his, who decided to start raising the rent, while you are one paycheck away from bankruptcy. With these governments, the Australian public is incapable of even getting a power station built to keep their bills down.
What we have is a typical blackmail the State and Federal Government agenda. This is the result of allowing foreign owned corporations to take over local industry. All for short term foreign capital which is returned in very short time to the share holders of those foreign corps.
Then the blackmail for subsidies begin.
Another international scam!
Hi Jase
in your comment you have a bit in regards to the indians in hospitals, they are not qualified nurses I dont know about the doctors though but the nurses from what ive been told by an insider they buy their qualifications and bypass the system by use of bogus service providers and also is used in part for citizenship they arn’t qualified at all this person told me they dont know nursing basics, have no bedside manner, I wouldn’t want one looking after me in hospital that’s for sure
KAP can’t see the forest for the trees here.
This is Foreign owned mining companies sticking the middle finger up at the scumbag politicians, unions, leftarts, and the government swamp.
These foreign owned mining companies know that without the royalties and brown paper bags, the Queensland government and the federal government crashes.
The morons in government have over regulated and all but made it impossible to conduct business for all mining lease holders in Australia.
No other business has the hoops of regulation that make no sense whatsoever that the government thought would create unessasary jobs to constantly create piles of paperwork that has now backfired.
How many builders or plumbers or households pay a fire and emergency services fee but have to supply and use their own fire and rescue equipment?
How many other business in Australia have to pay for government helicopters that are never available when needed because the government are using them to chase Aboriginal kids in stolen cars in citys?
Black Red and Green tape was designed to create jobs; now, the charlatans that push this are going to see the repcusions of their actions that will directly affect them and their families’ welfare.
Anyone noticed in hospitals that the labour force is slowly becoming good for nothing poorly trained Indians, Pakistanis express from the UK?
The school teachers next? O sorry it’s already happening.
Colsworths’ centralised processing facilities are full to the brim of these less than sanitary foreign people on special visas.
When the original Bonlac foods disappeared in Hundreds of locations in Australia the government was delighted with a Canadian food production company moving in to save the day, hang on sorry,,,,, a Chinese owned Canadian company that set up drying plants to send poweded milk and baby formula to China that was aloud to pay farmers lass per litre than they got 40 years ago from the original Bonlac foods.
The result is the Dairy industry has all but gone and the ones that are left are the mum and dad small operations for small independents or Colsworths due to silenced loans, and yep you guessed it the Chinese own the big Dairy farms some milking cows in large numbers 24 a day, and again loaded with foreign workers on special visas. The animal welfare is terrible, with cows dropping dead from inhumane treatment and the bulk of milk sent to China as powder.
The same will happen with all this native title crap; it’s nothing to do with Aboriginals that are unaware porns. China will show up shortly with buckets of cash to use the native title land to supply China. And the corrupt Murray’s as we all know would sell the house and land that they didn’t own for a 6pk of VB on a Friday night then demand it back Monday morning to sell again for a Pack of smokes.
To sum up, this will backfire on the government, and the effects will be overwhelming in cities and towns with poorly managed services and facilities as without mining in Australia, AUSTRALIA STOPS.
Note: everything starts with mining; the device you are reading this on will have been entirely made from mining materials.
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