Wollongong City Council says it is developing a procurement model and considering rate changes to help secure the future of the Port Kembla steelworks.
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Lord Mayor Gordon Bradbery has spoken about council’s options to help BlueScope achieve the cuts required to maintain Illawarra steel operations.
If $200 million in annual savings and 500 job losses can’t be achieved by 2017, the steelworks would close.
In his new column, published in Wednesday’s Wollongong Advertiser and Lake Times, Cr Bradbery said council was just “one piece of a larger jigsaw” when it came to supporting BlueScope.
“We are doing our bit to reduce costs for heavy industry across our city, including property currently being used by BlueScope,” he said.
“We only have two significant leavers, namely rates and procurement.”
Council chose to keep the increases for heavy industry to 3 per cent in 2015/16, following part of a special rate variation, which underwent extensive community consultation early last year.
“This is effectively a saving of $650,000 a year for BlueScope in the next financial year,” he said.
“We have also held discussions to consider our differential rating structure as part of our annual planning process.”
The result of those discussions will be put before the community for feedback before being considered next year.
The South Coast Labour Council and Australian Workers Union have called on local, state and federal governments to improve steel procurement policies.
The push includes mandating use of a minimum percentage of Australian-made steel in infrastructure projects. Cr Bradbery said council was developing a “Supply Action plan” that included a procurement model.
The model would take into account “local social, economic and environmental benefits when council purchases goods or resources”.
“We have also amended our Sustainability Policy to include a commitment that all structural steel and reinforcement will be procured locally,” he said.
“What this means is that we are now using 100 per cent Colourbond in recent projects, where suitable, as well as handrail and bridge rail works. “Council projects use only relatively small quantities of steel, but where we can we will buy our locally produced steel.”
Council has received letters supporting BlueScope.
