The world’s most loveable lump of coal, or corporate propaganda’s smiling assassin – whichever way you look at it – has gained notoriety in the Mackay area, even hosting his own show on the local Seven network.

Despite his arduous campaigning to get local kids to eat their fruit and veggies, poor old Hector has come up against some serious critics.

One blogger even suggested Hector should be “shipped to China, incinerated in a vast furnace with millions of other Hectors and become part of the life-threatening smog that blankets Shanghai”.

Hector was developed by Dalrymple in 2009 and has been a well-known but not universally liked figure in Mackay ever since.

He is a lump of coking coal from the Bowen Basin, the type used for metallurgical processing.

Named after key landmarks around Mackay, such as Hector Beach and Mount Hector, he was designed to be an agreeable character that supported and contributed positively to the local community.

He can be spotted around Mackay encouraging children to be proactive with energy saving and environmental responsibility, on top of teaching children to eat their fruit and vegetables, observe road safety and use sunscreen.

Hector’s most recent community engagement is a competition where the kids of Mackay can get their hands on a mind-blowing (for a six-year-old) $2000.

Kids in the Mackay area can enter by writing a short story about Hector the lump of coal for a picture book and submitting it to the Dalrymple Bay Coal Terminal before June 13.

Second prize is $1000 and the total prize pool is $4000.

Whether Hector is an appropriate character for kids or a simple pawn in a game of corporate propaganda, I’ll let you be the judge.