Not everyone like’s the idea of Bundy and coking coal

Bundaberg could soon add coking coal to its long list of exports but not everyone has warmed to the proposal.

Coal mining does not immediately spring to mind when you think about the sugar city of Bundaberg. But apparently there is a rich-lode of the black stuff in the region, with plans for a metallurgical coal mine northwest of the city proposed by Perth-based Fox Resources.

Fox Resources executive director Bruce Garlick was in Bundy last week seeking support for the underground project near Moore Park that, not surprisingly given its location, has attracted some opposition from the local farming community as well at the political level.

Originally from Zimbabwe, Garlick was a court prosecutor before emigrating to Australia in 1989.

Over a nice lunch at Brisbane’s Customs House last week with your diarist, the Perth-based executive says his first-port-of-call when arriving in the country was a hostel underneath the Story Bridge where he remembers watching television with a couple of North Koreans. “There was nothing else to do so I befriended these guys,” Garlick recalls.

Garlick went onto a stellar career as a mining executive based in Perth, including stints with Normandy Mining, Murchsion Zinc, Platinium Australia and now Fox.

He also had a senior role at MIEnergy, the largest privately owned oil and gas producer in China.

Bundaberg is famous worldwide for its rum, not so much coal.

Garlick used his legal skills to good effect last year when Fox was successful in having the Queensland Supreme Court overturn the State Government’s blocking of Fox’s mining development application.

The court held that Resources Minister Scott Stewart had made an “error of law” in not conducting an “evaluative process” to gauge community sentiment towards the proposal. Garlick says the mine will provide 200 new jobs, with a priority on local employment in a drive-in, drive-out operation, and $45 million in estimated annual economic benefits.

He hit back at a recent petition presented to State Parliament that the development could “threaten one of Australia’s largest food producing areas, underground aquifers and the pristine environment.”

He says the proposed operation will be located on non-arable land, unsuitable for agriculture, and that Fox Resources was committed to protecting the local water supply.

He also stressed to City Beat that the project is currently in the early exploration stage. Should the exploration prove successful, and the project gain the necessary environmental and regulatory approvals, Fox is proposing an underground operation with the metallurgical coal to be shipped to export markets via the Port of Gladstone.

Boo to you

One of Brisbane’s oldest community clubs is still making history, claiming one of the most prized awards at the annual Clubs Queensland Awards for Excellence last week.

The Booroodabin Community and Recreation Club at Bowen Hills, best known as The Boo, received the community health and wellbeing award for a program that has already helped to change lives. The Boo, established as a bowls club in 1888 and once described by Queensland Governor Lord Lamington as “a source of pleasurable reminisce”, began its “You OK, Boo?” program to provide free health check-ups for patrons and staff.

The likes of QML and other health professionals attended The Boo and provided checks for blood pressure, cholesterol, vision, hearing and blood glucose among others, uncovering some issues that patrons and staff had not known.

Clubs Queensland’s judges commended the program, which received a rousing ovation from more than 1200 people attending the awards at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre.