AMWU: Baird Budget Trashes Manufacturing Jobs in NSW

17 June 2014

The Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU) has slammed the NSW Coalition Budget for failing to deliver local jobs from new infrastructure projects.

Despite announcing $13billion for transport infrastructure in the budget today, the NSW government cannot point to a single local job that will be created from these projects. In fact, the announcements so far indicate that the Baird Government will force manufacturing of trains, buses and ferries offshore or interstate.

“Mike Baird has been out today calling this the infrastructure budget, but the only thing he is building is blue collar unemployment queues in Western Sydney and the Hunter” said Tim Ayres, AMWU NSW Secretary.

“This budget is a slap in the face to Australian manufacturing workers.”

“There are currently 3000 jobs in the Hunter that rely on rail manufacturing. In Western Sydney, 1 in 5 workers are employed in manufacturing.

“But where is the investment from the government? It’s non-existent.”

The scale of the jobs crisis was highlighted last month, when bus builder Custom Coaches, went into voluntary administration. This has resulted in the loss of nearly 50 skilled jobs in Western Sydney and unless the administrator can sell the facility, another 250 jobs wills go.

Today, the budget has announced 200 new buses but has made no commitment to building them locally.

“These new buses are a huge opportunity for the government. If they care about local manufacturing jobs, the Minister and the Premier will convene an urgent meeting at Custom Coaches to talk about the local capacity to build these new buses,” said Mr Ayres.

As well the potential job losses in train and bus building, the government has made no significant announcement on local jobs associated with the Western Sydney Airport. In the initial stage, this is a $2.4billion dollar project that could deliver 50000 local jobs. Yet this budget will deliver only $109 million towards the project.

“Infrastructure jobs do not appear out of thin air – they require a serious, long-term commitment from the NSW Government.

“This government must commit to building locally and giving local businesses the certainty to invest,” said Mr Ayres.

“This budget is D-Day for the transport manufacturing industry. Without a rapid turn-around from Mike Baird we will lose thousands of jobs in the Hunter and Western Sydney.”