Growing Greater Gladstone Distinctly Geocentrically

Over the last decade Gladstone has taken the regional lead. Gladstone has really grown creating its own geographic centre. Greater Gladstone pulses by itself, independently of any other regional cities. Gladstone, Boyne Island, Tannum Sands, Calliope, together with Agnes and Biloela work locally together, while our Port takes this Gladstone 'to the Globe'.

Our front cover photo 'Sunset at RG Tanna Coal Terminal' is provided courtesy of Wendy Roscoe of Wendy Roscoe Photography. Wendy's photo won the Q150 Birthday Photography Competition - Iconic Queensland Infrastructure Category. See her advertisement under 'Photographers'.

This photo encapsulates the feelings of the Gladstone Area Promotion and Development Limited's (GAPDL), Chief Executive Officer, Glenn Churchill when he said on 28th Oct 2009, to Pocket Books: 'The Gladstone Region has a worldwide reputation as Australia's emerging and diverse economic powerhouse.'

This region has enough economic clout to attract industries and to provide goods and services to its inhabitants, needing very little from other provinical towns. The growth of shopping centres, services businesses and home based firms complements the busy industrial centre. Gladstone is a great place to live and holiday with it's natural and man-made attractions like Facing Island, Curtis Island, Awonga Dam, Tondoon Gardens and Tannum Sands beaches.

Providing the glue to help make the region gel is Gladstone's very own phone book - this Pocket Book. Pocket Book provides the one-stop 'just so complete' information for this Gladstone region - businesses with contacts and information, residential phone numbers, club listings, tourist information, full city, town and country street directory, diary, calendars and even rain charts. Our front cover shows Courtney McBryde of Pocket Books accessing information about carpet cleaners from both the book of Pocket Book and the website of Pocket Book. Every page of all of our current Pocket Books is shown at www.pocketbooks.com.au

The more Greater Gladstone grows, the more residents wish to buy locally, using this very pocket phone book.

Population comes to the region with the growth of the current port, coal, cement, alumina and aluminium industries. (Then the services like housing, schools, roads usually more than double the number of jobs.) At the environmental impact stage are several new projects. These include:

Boulder Steel's proposed Steel Making Facility with 1500 construction jobs and 1150 fulltime jobs when both stages are operating. Stage one will export annually 2.1 million tonnes of steel product, rising to 5.2 million tonnes with stage two, with $2.8 billion spent developing the steel mill. "This proposed Boulder Steel project heralds a new era for the region as the home of the only new steel mill in the country right now," the Premier, Anna Bligh said (28th Aug 2009).

Wiggins Island Coal Terminal (Map G C2) is expected to have six berths by 2012, with a shipping capacity of 70 million tonnes per year. Stage one will provide 130 positions.

Australia Pacific LNG project intends to construct a 400 km underground gas pipeline from the Walloon gasfields near Chinchilla to Gladstone for a liquefied natural gas plant at Gladstone. This $35 billion joint venture with Origin and Conoco-Phillips would have a capacity of up to 16 million tonnes per year.

Queensland Curtis LNG project proposes a gas and water pipeline network of 800 km connecting to a liquefied natural gas plant at Gladstone. The first $8 billion stage should provide about four thousand construction jobs and one thousand permanent positions.

These are just some of the proposed projects. Gladstone is also picking up jobs and investment from other regional cities.

Cement Australia's moving of 32 employees from Rockhampton to Gladstone is such an example. Mike Stekete, writing in The Australian, said these employees had been offered positions at the more modern Gladstone Cement Australia plant. The dated Rockhampton plant's closure reflected a need for more environmentally friendly modern plants like Gladstone's. The "53% increase in rail charges between Rockhampton and Melbourne" would also have given Gladstone the competitive edge through shipping.

Gladstone Population: I think the Queensland statisticians had been having a little laugh when they declared that Queensland's population had, on 20th October 2009, at 4:44am reached 4,444,444. These figures are done by estimation, with a jolly neat estimation for 4:44am. They then check hospital records to find a baby born about the right time; strangely they never check the NSW-QLD border to see if an immigrant mexican might have been the 4,444,444th resident! Eight million are expected by 2057. (In 1990 I made a projection that Qld's population would pass Victoria's in 2013: I think we are well on track to do so.)

The local government area of Gladstone's population estimate on 30th June 2008 was 57,587, up 1,871 (or 3.4%) on the previous year. This is the sixth fastest growth rate in the state. At this growth rate, the Gladstone local government area will have 86,000 people in June 2020, and 101,000 by June 2025.

Since 1993, Pocket Book has been promoting the Gladstone region as a distinct area. Pocket Book looks forward to helping 100,000 Happy Rock residents enjoy their independent regional place under the sun. You can use this true book and see this as a digital book at www.pocketbooks.com.au

If you run any form of website, please put a link to the pocketbooks.com.au so that your clients and friends can easily see all of Greater Gladstone. Many firms are securing their classification positions in this popular Pocket Book to inform residents of their products and services. You can print colour wall maps from the website

Gerry Clarke, Pocket Books