Opposition leader Bill Shorten has visited Arrium workers, who are poised to vote in favour of a pay cut, and pushed for a $50 million grant from the federal government to upgrade the Whyalla steelworks.
The Advertiser reports that Shorten said the money would be used to make the steelworks more attractive to a buyer, and to avoid it being “salami sliced” off the rest of the company.
He compared the issue to a same-sex marriage plebiscite, saying the use of $50 million would provide more benefit to the country than a $200 million vote.
“I don’t want to see this business salami sliced between mining, between Whyalla, between the downstream products, we need an integrated steel producer in Australia,” Shorten said.
“I don’t want to lose these jobs, I don’t want to lose the ability of Australians and Australian governments to have some say over the prices of the steel which taxpayers pay for.”
The integrated iron ore and steel company went into administration in April, owing $4 billion, and is being sold off in two parts. These are mining consumables business Moly-Cop and the rest of the company – including the Whyalla operations – as Arrium Australia.
Meanwhile, the chances of selling the steelworks as part of Arrium Australia received a boost yesterday when Whyalla workers agreed to hold a second vote on a pay cut next week.
Employees at the steelworks rejected a 10 per cent pay cut last month. Nearby iron ore workers at the Middleback Ranges agreed to the cut during the first vote.
The Australian Financial Review reports that unions agreed after days of discussions to the second vote.
South Australian senator Nick Xenophon said that the federal government should now provide assistance to the Whyalla plant.
“If the workers do their bit, as difficult as it is, then the federal and state governments must do theirs,” he told Ten Eyewitness News.
Whyalla’s Mayor Tom Antonio welcomed the wage cut decision, saying it would help sell the steelworks along with the rest of Arrium.
“The last thing we want is to be left as a shag on a rock,” The AFR reports him as saying.