After decades of pleas, fallen miners from a historic mine will be memorialised

A Mount Isa Miners Memorial will be jointly funded, honouring 151 lives lost Mon 10 Aug 2026 at 10:53am In short: The North West Queensland town of Mount Isa will soon have a memorial put up to honour miners who have died at its flagship mine. The state government, Glencore, and Mount Isa City Council are funding the $4.7 million landmark. What's next? The memorial is set to be built by the end of 2027. After almost 30 years of advocacy, a multimillion dollar memorial honouring 151 fallen workers who died at a historic mine will be built in outback Queensland. The $4.7 million Mount Isa Miners Memorial will be jointly funded by the state government, the mine's current owner Glencore, and the Mount Isa City Council. Overlooking Mount Isa Mines, which sits directly across from the North West Queensland town, the landmark set to be erected at Frank Aston Hill is expected to be completed by late 2027. Former Mount Isa resident Steve Trevor lost his brother Tony in a mining accident in 1995 and said he has spent decades waiting for a formal memorial site. "The memories are still sharp in my mind," Mr Trevor said. "[The memorial] will bring recognition of a life lost. What they gave to their community is the ultimate sacrifice. "They didn't come home. There's only a few people who can understand what that feels like." Mr Trevor said his brother's death was still a haunting memory. "I remember I got my call about my brother's passing at midnight, and it was terrible not just for myself but my family, my mother, my father," he said. "It means not just a lot to myself, but there's the 151 families as well." Former local John Moran, who first called for a memorial in 1998, said it was a historic day for Mount Isa. "[The fallen miners] were residents of Mount Isa. They never flew in or flew out," Mr Moran said. "Let's hope that there's never another one. "As I've said for a long, long time, those 151 workers deserve to be remembered, but more importantly they deserve to be memorialised." Long time coming Mount Isa Mayor Peta MacRae said she was proud the long called-for memorial was finally becoming a reality. "We are hoping to get the sod turned and get underway as soon as we possibly can," Mayor MacRae said. She said $700,000 of the funding would be provided by council for the construction of the memorial. Despite plans and costings being drawn up in 2023, support for the project ultimately stalled without the backing of the previous state government. Deputy Premier Jarrod Bleijie said the Crisafulli government would be injecting $2 million into the memorial through repurposed funds from the Mount Isa Transition Fund. Mr Bleijie said re-allocating the funds for a memorial site still honoured its original plan of supporting the region's economy after the closure of the Mount Isa underground copper mine in 2025. "When people are coming to towns like Mount Isa, that's heart and soul is the mining community, they can reflect and be educated on how important the mining industry is in the great state of Queensland," he said. While there had been no deaths at Mount Isa Mines since Glencore took ownership in 2013, the mining giant is also putting $2 million into the site. Glencore Metals Chief Operating Officer Troy Wilson began his career at the famed mine in the 1990s and said the mine and local community had been connected for over a century. "But that history has suffered some profound loss and we must remember every day that there's people that went to work here and didn't get to come home," Mr Wilson said. "This memorial will create a permanent place where we can honour all those that have gone before. "It also will stand as an opportunity for us to remember what our responsibility is and that's to learn from the past, to continuously improve, and to ensure we do everything we can every day to make sure all of our workers go home safe at the end of the day."