Mount Isa City Council | “I literally flipped a coin, and it came down on the side of Mount Isa,” he recalls. He travelled to Brisbane to interview for a job in the mines. After being accepted, he took a train from Brisbane to Townsville, then from Townsville to Mount Isa. The trip took roughly two days. At the time, there were a lot of European migrants who – like him – had traded away the luxuries of city and coastal living in order to make a better life for themselves in a remote community. Mount Isa’s people and country lifestyle appealed to McGrady and kept him around. After a short time, he joined the Australian Labor Party, where he was given a lot of early opportunities to learn and grow – opportunities he never would have received in the city. In 1973, he leveraged that experience in order to run for, and win, a seat on the local council. In 1985, he was elected as Mayor, before moving into state politics in 1989. In the years since McGrady arrived, Mount Isa has evolved into the administrative, commercial and industrial centre of Queensland’s vast north-western region. While the city has grown bigger and more
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