Editorial: Mount Isa will endure despite Glencore shutdown blow

Mount Isa is not merely a town – it’s a powerful symbol of what Queenslanders are capable of when they collectively roll up their sleeves and go to work. The city suffered a blow this week, but it will endure.

The city of Mount Isa and its residents are well-equipped to stare down the future challenges as Glencore bows out of copper mining. Picture Glencore

Mount Isa is not merely a town – it’s a powerful symbol of what Queenslanders are capable of when they collectively roll up their sleeves and go to work.

Mount Isa suffered a blow this week when Glencore announced it would close the copper operations which have been so pivotal to the success of this century-old town carved out of the Gulf country 900 kilometres west of Townsville.

Yet Mount Isa will endure because it is the very embodiment of that resilient spirit which has made Queensland such a prosperous and successful state.

The Isa began in 1923 when a handful of people pitched a few tents near the Leichhardt River, began digging up the earth and put into a motion a process which created unimaginable wealth which has spread itself across the nation and the world.

The town has its problems which go beyond the looming closure of the copper mines and extend into juvenile crime, housing issues and cost of living pressures far more pressing on household finances than those most Queenslanders experience on the coast.

Yet, as local state MP Robbie Katter says, Mount Isa, for all its problems, also happens to be the “capital’’ of the North West Minerals Province, one of the richest mineral deposits on planet earth.

This town has the established infrastructure and services to expand and grow more rapidly in the 21st Century than it did in the 20th Century.

More importantly, Mount Isa still has a community spirit developed over generations of shared burdens and hard work that ensures it can stare down any challenge.

This town will not merely survive. It will thrive.