Newsroom

March 4, 2025

A fourth mining company has fallen victim to what Katter’s Australian Party Leader and Traeger MP Robbie Katter has described as the “state-sanctioned economic shackles” eroding the future of the North West, prompting calls for urgent intervention by the Crisafulli LNP Government.

In addition to re-iterating his calls for a fast-tracking of the CopperString project, so to drive down industrial power prices, Mr Katter is also demanding an immediate restructure of way the government manages the Mount Isa to Townsville Rail Line.

Mr Katter said the line was unique in that it is the only length of track in Queensland that must be completely funded by users, as opposed to being propped up by the State and utilised as an economic-enabler.

He said he was deeply disappointed to learn that Centrex’s Ardmore Project, 120km south of Mount Isa near the small town of Dajarra, would fold costing 150 jobs (50 of which were local).

The phosphate company advised the ASX overnight that it had entered into voluntary administration.

“Centrex is very regretfully another victim of government complacency around industry-enabling infrastructure,” Mr Katter said.

“I have been in talks with them and they have explained to me the economics just do not stack up, particularly around the cost of logistics and what they are having to spend getting their product to port.

“Two-thirds of their operating costs were going logistics alone, and that is many tens of millions of dollars annually.

“Queensland Rail has refused to use legal avenues available to them to provide discretionary pricing to this, and other, projects and sadly this is the result.

“Had those road and rail access charges been halved or at least reduced, we may have had a very different outcome here.”

Mr Katter said, due to the Mount Isa line’s pricing conditions, Centrex’s closure would have flow-on affects to other users down the track

“It is perverse but once capacity goes out of the line, Queensland Rail then assesses how it can make up for that loss by passing on additional costs to other users,” he said.

“In turn, tightening the noose around their necks and increasing their operating costs – and you wonder why we can never reach our potential out here.”

Centrex’s shutdown follows the closure of three junior copper mines (True North Copper, Copper Resources Australia, and Chinova Resources) late last year within the neighbouring Cloncurry Shire.

Cloncurry Mayor Greg Campbell has since warned the closures meant the loss of 400 jobs and would leave debt to the town’s businesses.
A total of 550 mining jobs have been ripped out of the North West in the last 6 months, and Glencore’s proposed copper mine closure also looms which means the loss of an additional 1,200 jobs.

Mr Katter said he wanted the LNP Crisafulli Government, and namely the State’s Transport Minister, to urgently address Queensland Rail’s anti-industry approach to the Mount Isa line.