Minister Alannah MacTiernan encourages positivity in town

Ms MacTiernan said at the March 8 meeting the community needed to change their attitude and understand there are real opportunities in Collie.

"We understand people are concerned. You are concerned about the future of your town. You are concerned about the opportunities for your children and for your grandchildren," she said. 

"But I can tell you we are doing absolutely everything we can to address this issue.

"We ask you to have faith and to talk up the town. The more we hear about these negative stories about that it's all doomed that has the risk of becoming a self fulfilling proficiency."

South West Liberal MLC Steve Thomas said Ms MacTiernan was more than capable of developing solutions for Collie, but still agreed their current projects needed to be scrapped like the biomass plant. 

" A more positive meeting. I think Alannah has some capacity to hopefully deliver some outcomes. My understanding of what she said was there is an $80 million fund to deliver industrial and economic development in Collie. So that's what I expect to see out of this," he said.

"I thought it was a positive meeting, apart from the pie in the sky ideas, there was no real substance. There's no said solution yet, but there's a plan to have a plan."

Ms MacTiernan spoke about other potential projects for the town to help stimulate and create more jobs for locals.

"Companies are coming to us and talking to us about projects such as; an electric arch furnace for the production of steel, a potential aluminum smelter, a vehicle maintenance and training facility, a timber processing high grade production of veneers, a potential nickle farm, and even companies that are interested in medicinal cannabis," she said.

"The hot house production those sort of operations would be around 100 jobs, a small electric arch furnace would be around 600 jobs. So they vary," she said.

Ms MacTiernan said hopefully by next year they would see companies make a firm commitment on some of the projects.  

"There is certainly a lot going on with lithium, whilst we very much take the view that Kemerton will be a great thing and the jobs will feed jobs into people in Collie. We are also conscious that the people of Collie are very keen on jobs based here," she said.

"The very strong feedback we are getting from the community is they want industry based here in Shotts or the areas around Bluewaters.

So far state government funding of $80 million has been put aside for projects in the town for a projected solar farm, biomass plant and grants for local businesses to develop in town. 

Ms MacTiernan said she was also hopeful a Federal Labor Government would help with the transition if elected this year.

"We are optimistic that if we get a change of government federally there is a clear commitment from Federal Labour to assist us with just transition, so we would see that come on top of the $80 million we already have," she said. 

"We have $80 million on the table. We've got the money there to drive the projects. The thing is we just have to get the companies to invest."

One Nation South West MLC Colin Tincknell said at the meeting it was all about banding together in support.

"It's not about the unions. It's not about Labor, Liberal, One Nation, or other parties. It's about working together to find the answers. If it was easy we would have already come up with the answers," he said.

"It's not about looking at one or two options, it's about looking right across."

AMWU state secretary Steve McCartney said they would be forming a committee with anyone interested to leave their name and contact details behind at the meeting, or to get in touch.

South West Liberal MLC Steve Thomas said Collie needs action, rather than just another committee. 

The next meeting will be held at the Miners Institute. The date and time is to be advised.

What did you think of the meeting? Send us your thoughts at editor.colliemail@fairfaxmedia.com.au.