An upgrade to telecommunications systems is a major part of Richmond's new administration centre

With the help of Harrington Systems, the council has tapped into the cable between Sydney and Darwin, to access 200MB of data, in a move it hopes will attract plenty of new business to town.

Council’s new system does a loop around Richmond, catering for its industrial centre, the works depot, the water treatment plant, the caravan park and Kronosaurus Korner, as well as the new administration building.

“A big business can come here and have better high speed internet capacity than they’ve got in Brisbane,” Cr Wharton said.

“One of the things that’s a benefit for them in those bigger cities is a communication network - well, we’ve got it here.

“They can buy an industrial block for $5 a square metre – Townsville is $100 a square metre.”

Manufacturing businesses servicing resource and rural industries that would save on freight costs are the types of enterprises he has in mind, adding that the shire would throw in a five year general rate holiday to entice business and extra staff.

Cr Wharton was also looking forward to the savings in time and cost to council in being able to conduct training sessions and meetings via video-conferences rather than sending people away.

“If you go away it’s usually a day’s travel.

“People can be away a week to do a day’s training, and it costs a lot, and sometimes people are away from their families when they don’t want to be. We’re very excited.”

The new building boasts 24 offices, including one for Transport and Main Roads staff, and employed 180 different people in the construction phase.

It was funded with $1.5m from the federal government’s Drought Communities Program and the rest out of council reserves.

“We justified that by the amount of jobs it created and how the building kept the economy going,” Cr Wharton said.

A construction contract was signed on April 19, 2016 and it was handed over for fitting out on March 10 this year.

“We’ve been wanting to do this for a long time,” said Cr Wharton. “The old offices were built in 1958 and they leaked, and were falling off the stumps, and we couldn’t fit in there.”

Council had the vacant block of land and the machinery to build it up with five metres of fill.

The building hosted two different meetings on the one day last week, a day after opening, when a MITEZ meeting was hosted, along with a regional Workplace Health and Safety function, with people from Mount Isa, Longreach, Georgetown, Cloncurry and Hughenden in town.

Cr Wharton said the civic centre still remained in the old administration building.