General News
10 September, 2024
Invest in the West: Mayors want more support from governments
Mount Isa played host to the Western Queensland Alliance of Councils Assembly.
Western Queensland is about to hit the prime of its life but needs a helping hand to realise its full potential.
That was the common message from mayors and local leaders as representatives from 24 councils gathered in Mount Isa last week for the Western Queensland Alliance of Councils Assembly.
“We have to fight for everything we get, and we don’t get much,” said Richmond Shire mayor John Wharton.
The cost-of-living crisis, lack of housing, telecommunications, the 2032 Olympics, renewable energy, roads and health – just about every issue facing the bush was put on the table for discussion at the two-day forum, held at the Buchanan Park events complex.
Greg Hoffman, the executive chair of the North West Regional Organisation of Councils, was the chief coordinator of last week’s event and said having 24 councils working together achieved outcomes with governments.
“Strengthening regional representation, joint planning and funding of essential infrastructure; that’s the theme,” he told the mayors, councillors and CEOs.
“We need to collaborate better on housing, health and livability.
“Growing tourism, trade and having genuine input into the games of the 2032 Olympiad and Paralympiad ... and adopting practical grant and subsidy arrangements (are priorities).”
“There the three electorates that make up Western Queensland, Treager, Gregory and Warrego and we are conducting candidates forums in each of our three ROCs on the 26th of September where we will seek (the candidates’) responses to those issues.”
A number of expert speakers were invited to Mount Isa to address the WQAC Assembly, including Telstra regional general manager Rachel Cliffe, who spoke about the pending 3G shutdown.
She said most people would be unaffected by the change when the telco turns off the 3G network next month, but said those who would be could most likely solve their issues with a software update.
“In this entire Western Queensland Alliance of Councils we’ve got just over 1000 3G devices left on our network,” she said
“We’ve been talking about this for five years now and we’ve delayed it a couple of times but we are now closing the network from the 28th of October.
“More than half of those devices that need to be upgraded are actually software updates.
“They’re not needing to buy a new handset, it’s about just updating the software on your phone.
“And we’ve been putting this rather annoying message on all of those devices. So if someone has got one of those phones in the room, they need to upgrade it.”
Ms Cliffe said that many devices were searching for 3G by default and that the updates would improve connectivity.