General News
10 September, 2024
EDITORIAL: Money is not the only fix for rodeo
Changes are required to win back the community's trust.
The Mount Isa Rodeo is bigger than any individual, so the show will go on in 2025 and beyond, regardless of who is in charge, but major changes are required to get this region’s biggest event back on track.
That starts at the top.
Even if the current leadership does everything in its power to right the wrongs of the past, the community has lost confidence in Isa Rodeo Ltd, which means that even the best intentions will fail to have the desired impact.
Whether it is the chair or the CEO – or both – at least one of them has to make way.
Firstly, it sends a message.
Most importantly, it would be the change required to get the necessary government funding to help the event back on its feet.
This Queensland government has made a lot of bad decisions when it comes to spending, but Tourism Minister Michael Healy runs a tight ship and he’s rightly demanding accountability before handing over a bailout cheque.
The easy decision is to give the rodeo the money it needs.
Credit where it’s due, Healy has done his due diligence and made himself aware of some of the issues that caused the rodeo to get itself into this position.
And while Natalie Flecker and Rowena McNally are right when they say outside factors have contributed to Isa Rodeo’s downfall, there have been too many mistakes to ignore.
The high price of tickets in a cost-of-living crisis was perhaps the biggest blunder.
However, a worrying trend has emerged in recent times – a lack of local engagement.
Neither the CEO nor the chair live in Mount Isa, while most of the board also reside elsewhere.
If the rodeo leadership was better connected to the Mount Isa community, they would have picked up on the concerns being raised by local residents.
And if the locals were too polite to tell them to their faces when they did visit, they only had to look at social media.
Mount Isa can’t afford for the rodeo to die, but it can’t afford to have the locals disconnected from the city’s biggest event.