The Australian Manufacturing Workers Union is continuing its coast-to-coast campaign, encouraging industry to “buy Australian”.
National secretary Paul Bastian visited Kwinana, a manufacturing-heavy area near Perth, with the union’s message.
“Currently less than 10 per cent of steel being sourced for the resources sector is Australian-made, while steel fabrication factories in Kwinana sit idle and youth unemployment is 26.4 per cent,” said Bastian.
Bastian reiterated the prime minister’s manufacturing taskforce’s recommendation that manufacturing in resources and defence use Australian manufacturing to help protect 85,000 jobs, which the union says will be lost by 2017 without government intervention.
Also visited was defence contractor BAE Systems, a supplier to the navy.