Whyalla, four hours’ drive north of Adelaide, is a working-class town dominated by steel. The 60-year-old steelworks commands the skyline and underpins the local economy. Just under half of Whyalla’s workforce is dependent on the steelworks and the plant produces three-quarters of Australian structural steel.
Yet the industry is in trouble. Last week, the operation was placed under administration for the second time in less than a decade. British billionaire Sanjeev Gupta’s GFG Alliance, the current owner, owes at least $300 million to creditors, including local contractors and the South Australian government.
The crisis in Whyalla reveals catastrophic failures of the market and of successive governments’ embrace of partnerships with the private sector.
In 2017, GFG purchased the steelworks from its then owner, Arrium. To much fanfare, Gupta marched alongside politicians and union leaders to mark the handover. He promised over $1 billion to expand the plant, decarbonise operations and repair aging infrastructure. Gupta was feted by the corporate press as the “saviour of steel”. Adelaide’s Advertiser predicted “the most exciting time in Whyalla history”.
Gupta returned the plant to profitability, but none of the desperately needed investments materialised. Like Arrium, GFG was unprepared to forego revenue to upgrade the plant. Last year, despite <a href="https://www.amwu.org.au/correction_on_misreporting_of_a_deal_with_whyalla_steelworks">warnings by union members</a>, the blast furnace responsible for smelting was damaged during a botched repair operation. When operations were forced to shut down for many months, GFG responded by axing 56 jobs and slashing wages by 30 percent.
As workers’ pay packets shrunk and contractors were left unpaid, Gupta refused to subject himself to such fiscal restraint. Instead, he announced plans to renovate his $35 million harbourside mansion in Sydney’s Potts Point, including installing a cinema and whiskey tasting room.
Many of the steelworks that comprise Gupta’s debt-ridden global empire are idle, bankrupt or for sale. GFG has pursued a dramatic restructuring program following the collapse of its primary financier, Greensill Capital, in 2021. Falling commodity prices have also hit company profits. 
Europe’s IndustriAll trade union federation <a href="https://news.industriall-europe.eu/Article/1122">warns</a> that thousands of steel jobs in Czechia, Poland, Hungary and elsewhere have been lost at plants owned by GFG. Workers in Whyalla and abroad are being asked to pay for a crisis of their bosses’ making.
To guarantee jobs and ensure the long-term viability of manufacturing, the steelworks should immediately be placed in public hands and run to benefit workers. Despite pledging $2.4 billion to help entice a private buyer, Labor has ruled out nationalisation. Such a course of action would mean breaking with corporate interests and the public-private partnerships that have been so devastating for Whyalla’s workers.
Whyalla, the largest of three towns in South Australia’s once-powerful “Iron Triangle”, is in long-term decline. A former industrial centre of steelmaking and shipbuilding, today the region is burdened by high unemployment and economic disadvantage.
In 2016, government support to keep the steelworks open was contingent on cutting wages. A 10 percent pay cut was <a href="http://redflag.org.au/node/5535">accepted by union officials</a>, who have been more than ready to go along with the slashing of wages and conditions with no guarantee of job retention in return. 
It’s a familiar story. In 2018, Port Pirie’s Nyrstar lead smelter shed more than 100 jobs despite a $291 million state government guarantee. Nor did wage freezes and billions of dollars of public subsidies prevent the automotive industry pulling out of Australia.
While the government’s latest promise of funding has been greeted with understandable relief, many locals are right to remain cynical about their future. With more public money being thrown at private investors ahead of a possible sale of the steelworks, the promise of well-paid, long-term jobs remains elusive.

Nix Herriot

Trouble at the Whyalla steelworks

On a busy Friday night on 11 October, a lively crowd of 400 gathered outside South Australia’s parliament. Spilling across the pavement, protesters brandished homemade signs reading “Abortion care is healthcare”, “Hands off my body” and “Forced birth = violence”.
Young women and men, workers who had just clocked off for the day, families and trade unionists were there to rally against a new anti-abortion bill being proposed this month. If passed, these changes would force people who are more than 27 weeks and 6 days pregnant to give birth regardless of their wishes or the advice of their doctors.
The crowd was protesting to defend the hard-won right of women to control their own bodies and to decide their own futures. Loud booing and jeering followed the mention of Ben Hood, the Liberal MP introducing the private member’s bill. Hood aspires to be a culture warrior in the mould of US conservatives who spent decades chipping away at abortion rights until Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022.
Abortion was decriminalised in South Australia in 2021 with widespread support. According to a 2019 <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1753-6405.12997">study</a> in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health, 80 percent of South Australians support decriminalisation, 65 percent support widespread and readily available abortions and 63 percent support late-term abortions.
Most South Australian politicians are disinclined to attack abortion rights. So Hood’s bill is unlikely to pass either house of parliament. But the battle over abortion is far from finished.
As Prudence Flowers, Flinders University lecturer and co-convenor of the South Australian Abortion Action Coalition (SAAAC), told the crowd, a small but committed hard-right minority view undermining abortion access to organise their forces. Last month, around 1,000 anti-choice campaigners <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-09-25/ben-hood-abortion-bill-supporters/104397276">reported</a>ly gathered at parliament in support of Hood’s bill. This included prominent anti-abortion activist and academic Joanna Howe, who describes herself as advocating for “an Australia where abortion is <a href="https://www.drjoannahowe.com/about_dr_joanna_howe">unthinkable</a>”. For the hard-right and religious conservative wing of the Liberal Party, this is an opportunity to enthuse their base, recruit to their cause and drag their party—and the rest of society—even further to the right.
There is an important tradition of coming out onto the streets to defend abortion rights in South Australia. Rallies were held in 2021 in the lead-up to decriminalisation, and when Roe v. Wade was overturned in the US, many thousands marched in solidarity with the protests there. Friday’s rally continued this proud tradition. Those who took to the streets were united by anger, defiance and a commitment to action. Grey, a former health worker, told Red Flag: 
“I used to be a nurse, so this kind of issue is incredibly important to me. When I was a nurse, the times we went on strike were the only times things happened and people paid attention. Australians can be laid back people, but we need to get out and scream about it. People trust the government too much.”
Many placards and speeches called not just for the right to abortion, but to make it free, accessible and available without conditions. Barbara Baird, a long-time abortion activist and co-convenor of SAAAC, told the crowd “There are still access problems that haven’t been solved by decriminalisation”. These challenges particularly affect people in remote, regional and rural areas, 80 percent of whom must travel to Adelaide to access abortion care. It also involves significant costs for many women and requires them to take time off work. 
Labor has played an appalling role. Despite sixteen years in government before 2018, Labor did not decriminalise abortion. The party is expected to allow a “conscience vote” on Hood’s bill, which is an inexcusable concession to bigotry inside the party. Maddy Tapley, rally chair and convenor of the Defend Abortion Action Group told Red Flag: 
“The Liberals’ hard-right faction is attacking abortion while the Labor Party is committed to pandering to anti-women bigots inside and beyond its own ranks. A conscience vote would let Labor members vote against abortion rights with no repercussions. The real opposition won’t happen in Parliament—it’s going to happen here, in the streets.”

Trouble at the Whyalla steelworks

Abortion rights rally in Adelaide

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