The region’s parliamentary secretary Gareth Ward was celebrating on Monday morning, as BlueScope revealed its 2016 financial year profit was more than double the previous year’s figure.

“It’s a great result for the region and a demonstration that we [the government] were right, that I was right in arguing for payroll tax deferrals for this business,” Mr Ward told the Mercury.

Treasurer Gladys Berejiklian visited the Port Kembla steelworks in October to announce BlueScope would receive a structured payroll tax deferral of up to $60 million over three years.

“What we’ve demonstrated by working with the business is that a strong economy and a competitive market delivers long-term viability,” Mr Ward said. 

The MP’s positivity was echoed by his Labor counterpart Ryan Park, although Mr Park stressed the government needed to do more to support the steel industry.

“The reality is the community and workers expect that their political leaders will maximise the amount of Australian-made steel in taxpayer-funded infrastructure projects,” Mr Park said. 

Further cost savings have been flagged by BlueScope, but Mr Ward said the profitable position of the company’s Australian Steel Products business meant a foreshadowed major infrastructure upgrade was “looking good”.

BlueScope chief executive Paul O’Malley said on Monday a decision to reline the blast furnace at Port Kembla would be made “in 10 to 15 years”. 

Asked if the government believed its work to help the steel industry was done, Mr Ward said “no”. 

“The NSW government is the largest procurer of Australian steel; more than any other government, more than any other business,” he said, describing Labor’s steel plan as a “life-support proposal”. 

Mr Park said he “made no apology” for developing a policy that mandated the use of Australian-made steel. 

“Getting a good price is important, so too is the livelihood of thousands of local families who are directly and indirectly employed in the steel industry,” he said.