Consultants hit the playground

A Brisbane northside state school with barely 300 students has hired a costly marketing consultant to “stay ahead of the game”.

A Brisbane state school has employed consultants to produce a “quadrennial strategic plan”.

LIGHTBULB MOMENT?

HOW many consultants does it take to change a lightbulb? Answer: it depends on your budget. All jokes aside we appear to have reached peak consulting when a small state school on Brisbane’s northside with barely 300 students has to hire a marketing consultant to undertake something called a “quadrennial strategic plan.”

Wooloowin State School informed parents earlier this month that Grant O’Hara, from Brisbane-based Strategy First, will assist the school in preparing the plan and to “provide clear transparency in the strategic development process.”

According to his website Mr O’Hara, who used to work for a theatre company that produced “Wicked - the Broadway Musical”, charges up to $25,000 to produce strategic plans for schools so they can “stay ahead of the game.”

Parents at the school say that the six-figure sum being spent on a consultant could be better used elsewhere. “We are not talking about BHP here - it’s a small state school,” one parent says. “The money could have been used to fit out the entire school with iPads.” Another parent described hiring the consultant as a waste of money.

Your diarist, who must disclose is a former P and C Association president at the school, contacted the Education Department to ask about the appropriateness of hiring the consultant but it had not responded at time of going to print.

WRAPPED UP

THE marathon public examination into the collapse of Rockhampton-based building firm JM Kelly finally wrapped up in the Federal Court in Sydney on Thursday.

City Beat readers will recall that the examination began in August in Brisbane with key players, including founder Geoff Murphy and his children Elizabeth and John, being quizzed about the failure of the business that left subbies and others owed an estimated $50 million. Along the way there have been accusations of dishonesty levelled at the Murphy family especially in relation to the information provided to the Queensland Building and Construction Commission about the financial health of the business.

JM Kelly financial controller Elizabeth Murphy leaves court in August. (AAP Image - Richard Waugh)

Geoff, Elizabeth and John Murphy have all denied acting dishonestly and denied misleading the QBCC. A constant figure at the back of the courtroom during the public examination has been PwC liquidator Derrick Vickers (illustrated), whose job is now to recommend whether anyone should be prosecuted for breaches of the Corporations Act or other laws. Watch this space.

FROM COAL TO LITHIUM

BRISBANE-BASED junior miner Sayona, run by a posse of former Ipswich coal miners, is set to be the biggest lithium miner in the resource rich Canadian province of Quebec.

Sayona managing director Brett Lynch tells City Beat that the company is eyeing a bid for the Chinese-owned North American Lithium project located north of Montreal and 60 km from its own Authier project.

Lynch says acquiring the project, which has failed to make money for its previous owners because the lithium is contained in thin seams, makes sense given more $444 million has already been expended on a mill and processing plant.

Electric vehicles powered by lithium batteries are transforming the auto industry.

Lithium, a key ingredient in batteries for electric cars, has been dubbed the gold of the 21st century. Lynch predicts he may have to call on his experience as a former Ipswich coal mining engineer to make the project profitable.

Lynch and fellow directors James Brown, Allan Buckler and Dan O’Neill all started their careers at the New Hope coal mine near Ipswich before going their separate ways. “We are all dirty old coal miners from Ipswich but now we are mining lithium,” says Melbourne-based Lynch, who attended the company’s AGM in Brisbane on Friday. In Western Australia, the company has a joint venture with lithium producer Altura Mining.

HELLO TATA

THE big boys from Indian industrial giant Tata Steel will be in Brisbane next week talking coal. Tata each year buys about 12 million tonnes of metallurgical coal, worth about $2.8 billion, from Queensland mines but last year warned it may have to look elsewhere for supply because of bottlenecks at local ports.

We hear Tata Steel chief executive T V Narendran will be in town talking to coal suppliers to see how things can be improved. We hear some of the issues over delays have been resolved.

Tata Steel is a big buyer of Queensland coal.