Gympie councillors vote on mine’s $2.75million donation

Gympie Regional Council has stopped short of accepting a proposed multimillion-dollar donation from a company in the process of getting all the approvals needed to reopen a major gold mine in the city.

A multimillion-dollar proposal by the group trying to re-open an old Gympie gold mine has forced the council (CEO Robert Jennings and Mayor Glen Hartwig pictured) to split hairs on what, exactly, they were voting on, and whether it left them ‘exposed to gossip’.

Gympie Regional Council stopped short of accepting a mining group’s offered donation of $2.75 million on Wednesday.

Councillors were left to scrutinise a pitch by Galloway Group Company Limited, one of the groups working on reopening the historic Gympie gold mine, that it donate $2.75 million dollars to the council ahead of reopening the mine in conjunction with Aurum Pacific.

The mine has been shut since 2008.

A staff report said the mining group was awaiting approval from the federal government’s Foreign Investment Review Board, a Treasury advisory board that examines significant foreign investment proposals.

The report said neither the council nor Mayor Glen Hartwig (who Galloway approached the council through) would have any input into FIRB’s decision.

Galloway’s proposal was for funding to be injected into several projects.

These included $2 million to redevelop the Gympie Gold Mining Museum, $500,000 for earthworks to improve the Cooloola BMX and One Mile facilities, and $50,000 per year across five years to support the Heart of Gold short film festival.

The report said Galloway was “committed to further projects and contributions over the life of the mine’s operations”.

What councillors ended up agreeing to was much less than that.

Galloway Group Company Limited’s funding proposal would include a $2 million injection into the Gympie Gold Mining Museum at Monkland, councillors were told at Wednesday’s meeting.

Councillors voted unanimously in favour of the item, but not before first grilling Mr Hartwig and CEO Robert Jennings on the wording of the proposed motion, what the vote would actually do, the timing of it coming to the council, and what parts of its potential reopening still needed to be approved by the council.

Mr Jennings told councillors it was considered to be an “opportunity worthy of the council’s consideration” and it was “not fully known” what, if any, future approvals the council may need to make given the complexities of getting the mine running again.

CEO Robert Jennings with Mayor Glen Hartwig were grilled with a number of questions over the proposal, what councillors were actually being asked to endorse, and whether doing so was legally possible or whether it “exposed them to gossip”.

Mr Hartwig said councillors had already voted to lift the mining ban on the city, a change finalised by the state government, but there were still a “number of federal and state approvals (Galloway) need to obtain that have nothing to do with the council”.

“This is an offer to give our community money … they don’t have to do this,” Mr Hartwig said.

Bob Fredman queried whether the council was even legally able to accept the recommendation.

“We’re vulnerable to gossip,” Mr Fredman said.

Bruce Devereaux, who called it a “sweetener for the public” and a good PR move by the mining company, asked that the motion be changed to instead “note the receipt” of Galloway’s proposal – a change intended to make clear at this point the council was only accepting the document outlining the proposal, not actually accepting the $2.75 million itself.

This final motion was endorsed by the eight councillors at the meeting; Shane Waldock was not present.

Originally published as Gympie councillors vote on mine’s $2.75million donation