ROCKY’S KIDDING

TOWNSVILLE is 318km by air or 172 nautical miles northeast of Labona outstation on Moray Downs Station where the Adani mine is to be located.

Rockhampton is 438km by air or 237 nautical miles southwest of the Labona out- station on Moray Downs. Townsville is about 65 nautical miles or 120 conventional kilometres closer to the mine site than Rockhampton.

Rocky wants to become the FIFO headquarters for the Adani mine. Go figure. Townsville is putting up its own case, and it is a compelling one, to ensure it becomes FIFO Central for the Adani mine.

If you were the Adani accountant crunching the numbers to get the most bang for the company buck in terms of flight times and costs, what would your answer be? Over the course of the mine’s life, the savings in time and money spent keeping planes and employees in the air would be enormous.

Another thing to consider is Rocky’s vulnerability to flooding.

The city is split by the Fitzroy River and then there is the Yeppen- Woolwash Lagoon area at the city’s southern fringe which backs up and floods low- lying suburbs and the airport. I was down there for the 2011 flood. You could have held the swimming component of the Summer Olympics at the airport. The city area and southern suburbs like Depot Hill and Port Curtis were turned into swamp land.

This is why Rocky locals call residents of these areas “Swampers”. Even the Rockhampton Regional Council’s website warns about flooding.

“The Fitzroy River catchment, due to its immense size and shape, is capable of producing severe flooding following heavy rainfall events. The Rockhampton region has been affected by regular flooding from the Fitzroy River across recorded history. ( In recent times) major flooding from the Fitzroy River in 1991, 2011 and 2013 has had devastating impacts on the local community,” the council warns.

If you can’t land a plane at Rocky to get staff back from a shift at the mine, you won’t be able to get a plane off the ground to get workers out to the mine.

Meanwhile, what are the chances of floodwaters ever inundating the Townsville Airport? About the same as pigs flying over Castle Hill. It’s miners in, miners out 365 days of the year in Townsville. IN the meantime, Rockhampton Mayor Margaret Strelow isn’t talking. Townsville Bulletin reporters have had four attempts at contacting Cr Strelow for an interview about Rocky’s attributes and its bid for the FIFO contract. Each time she has been “unavailable”. She’s lying low in the bunker. Her reluctance to talk about Rocky’s FIFO credentials must be part of some sort of deliberate media strategy. A mayor who knocks back the chance to talk up her city? That’s a rare fish indeed.