REX - Regional Express

miningreview THE GOLD RUSH IN THE PAST, WHEN YOU MENTIONED BIG MACK AND THE MINING BOOM IN THE SAME SENTENCE, YOU WERE SIMPLY REFERRING TO A TRUCK. HOW TIMES HAVE CHANGED. CHRISTINE RETSCHLAG REPORTS ON NON-MINING BUSINESSES THAT ARE TURNING THE COAL RUSH INTO A GOLD RUSH. It seems everyone these days wants a piece of the mining pie. Or, to be more specific, the hamburger. Back in the early days of Australia's mining boom, when someone was talking about a Big Mack, they usually meant a truck. Now, they're just as likely to be talking about the latest fast food chain to move into regional Australia in a bid to make hay while the proverbial sun shines. And if you're looking for a positive economic indicator, nothing, it seems, screams spoils more than those neon golden arches. And McDonald's, it appears, is not alone. Recent reports reveal a flurry (or should that be a McFlurry?) of businesses, which are not usually synonymous with coal, spreading their tentacles around the country. From Broome to Bowen, and everywhere that lucrative black rock is being carted out of the ground, dirt, it seems, has now become pay dirt for some. If recent reports are to be believed, fast food operators such as Brumby's, Donut King, Pizza Capers and Michel's Patisserie, which all fall under the Retail Food Group umbrella, plan to increase their stake of stores in boom towns by 50 per cent this year. Baskin Robbins, it is reported, has its eye on a franchise flurry in Queensland's Emerald, while McDonald's is reportedly aiming to create 1,000 new jobs, mainly in Queensland's regional towns, by the end of 2012. Even coffee chain Zarraffa's has been scouting around Emerald. And it's not just fast food that is making its move on the mining industry. In Queensland's Surat Basin township of Roma, there are plenty of businesses feeding off the mining boom. A former miner in the south- eastern Queensland mining town told OUTthere if there's money to be made from an offshoot business, it's in the motor vehicle industry. "Southern Cross Ford did our 4x4 fleet servicing. We had up to four cars in there a week. Dores Elect-Air in town was also fixing our vehicles in terms of electrics, including air-conditioning and repairing our in-vehicle monitoring systems (a GPS which tracks all the project and contractor vehicles). They were always flat out as well," says the former miner, who declined to be named. "The sign-writing place SignaSaurus was doing a lot of project signage for contractor vehicles. We were getting 150 vehicles done. They were also doing traffic control signage and A-frame signage for private landholders that indicated mining works were occurring on their property. They were nearly always completely snowed under. 61

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