MORE than 650 workers at Portland Aluminium smelter have good reason to celebrate.
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Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Premier Daniel Andrews delivered the news workers and the Portland community had craved – the smelter had been saved.
For months there’s been speculation about the smelter’s future for a number of reasons, including subsidised electricity supply contracts ending. Then last month a power failure caused significant damage.
Restoring damaged pots is a costly and time consuming operation and it added another question mark about whether the plant was worth saving. With the shut down costing the smelter $1 million a day, workers had taken leave to ease the financial hit on operator Alcoa.
Mr Andrews interrupted his summer holiday to help broker a deal between his government, the federal government and energy provider AGL that will see the smelter continue operating for another four years.
Alcoa said it would begin work immediately to re-start smelting capacity. But the work will take about six months to complete.
Mr Turnbull and Mr Andrews’ presence in Portland on Friday underlined the importance of the smelter not only to the city but the region, state and nation.
The smelter directly employs more than 650 staff and indirectly thousands of other jobs in Portland. Australia might have ridden on the sheep’s back between the 1870s and 1960s but Portland’s heart is pumped by the smelter and associated industries. The fallout of no smelter would have been catastrophic not only for Portland but the families whose survival relies on it.
Both governments should be praised for securing the jobs. The federal government’s contribution is $30 million but the state has not disclosed its financial support, estimated to be significantly more.
There will be some industries questioning why such a massive amount should prop up the smelter when similar support has not been forthcoming for others in difficult economic times. Dairy farmers, having suffered savage price cuts last year, would be wondering about the consistency and what happens in four years time.
Friday’s announcement should be applauded, governments should be encouraging industry. But taxpayers have every right to expect a sustainable future to be developed over the next four years so the uncertainty is not repeated.