News & Features, Resource News, Uranium

Queensland’s Mary Kathleen looks to uranium future

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By Rosanne Barret

BACK when uranium was being mined in Queensland, the northwestern town of Mary Kathleen was a bustling community of 400, complete with a primary school, orchards and homes.

Now it’s a ghost town.

But northwestern Queenslanders are hoping uranium will again breathe new life into their region, buoyed by Julia Gillard’s bid to overturn Labor Party policy and allow Australian exports to India.

At least three major deposits dot the northwest minerals province and while companies are spruiking their quality internationally, they are not allowed to extract it under Queensland laws.

Mount Isa Chamber of Commerce president Brett Peterson is eager for a policy change to allow more miners to come to the city. Mary Kathleen is history — having been abandoned 30 years ago after its uranium reserves were exhausted — but Mr Peterson is keen for uranium miners to create new versions of the once-thriving town in the area.

“It really adds another string to our bow in terms of the minerals we can export,” he said.

He remembered when miners’ families came into Mount Isa from Mary Kathleen, 60km to the south, to shop, party and otherwise spend up. The now-deserted township was the scene of uranium mining in two spurts between 1956 and 1983, yielding a total of 31 million tonnes of uranium ore for export.

Australia exports $1 billion of uranium from its four South Australian and Northern Territory mines but in a 2009 report, the Queensland Resources Council argued that the state could contribute 2 per cent of the world market from its ore — then worth up to $14bn.

The Resource Capital Research report to the September quarter said international demand remained high, despite a price plunge following March’s Japan earthquake and Fukushima disaster. More than 84 new nuclear power plants are expected to be commissioned around the world by 2017.

Long-time Cloncurry resident Bob McDonald, a local councillor, said the community was very supportive of the uranium-mining industry.

“We’ve got the new deposit near Mount Isa but the lunatic government won’t let us mine it,” he said.

“The community is very pro. We’d like to see it go ahead — it’s just another mineral.”

A coalition of councils and business groups from Mount Isa to Townsville will meet Wayne Swan next week, and are expected to voice their support for uranium mining.

Queensland Premier Anna Bligh is standing firm on the state’s anti-mining policy, while the LNP’s Campbell Newman said the party had “no plans” and “no desire” for mining.