Advertisement

Hazelwood workers hang up their hats as power station closes

Robb Ortel is embraced by his family after finishing his last shift at Hazelwood power station on Friday.
Robb Ortel is embraced by his family after finishing his last shift at Hazelwood power station on Friday. Photograph: Scott Barbour/Getty Images

Hazelwood power station in Victoria closed on Friday, ending 52 years in production and leaving 750 people, many of whom have never worked in another industry, out of a job.

Bagpipes sang out as workers clocked off from their last shift, walking through the power station’s car park to hang their safety hats on a chain-link fence that had become a makeshift memorial for an industry that had been the main economic force in the region since the 1960s.

Below one display of hats, each of which had been signed like a high school yearbook, hung a banner: “God hates greenies.”

The last two generators were powered down on Wednesday and the final shift is due to finish at the station at 7.30am Saturday.

Some of the station’s 400 permanent staff and 350 contractors are expected to get jobs at the nearby Loy Yang A coal mine, after 150 jobs were made vacant through a voluntary redundancy program.

But the hiring for that jobs transfer program is yet to start, and many Hazelwood employees said they didn’t know what they would do next. Another sign, hanging below the hard hats, read: “Hanging our hats on a worker transition.”

Contractor Dave Johnson told AAP he transferred to Hazelwood from Yallourn power station 25km away just over 12 months ago on the promise of a five-year contract. “They were having job cuts at Yallourn so I volunteered to save redundancies over there,” he said on Friday. “But unfortunately it’s a sinking ship. You’ve just got to soldier on and see what you can do.”

John Darling, who remembered seeing the first generator at the station power up, was among those who hung up his hat on Friday. “It’s gut-wrenching, the emotions are flowing,” he said. “I just feel so sad for the younger blokes.”

The state government gave the region $266m to fund projects in the region, which will be administered through a new organisation called the Latrobe Valley Authority.

Premier Daniel Andrews said those funds would be rolled out over time, to ensure they were spent on things the community needed. “We can go down there and we can make all sorts of promises that probably can’t be kept,” he told the ABC. “That might satisfy people right now, or you can cop a bit of criticism and do it properly.

“I’d prefer the second way. Do it properly, make sure the commitments you make you can keep and make sure that you’re there not just while the TV cameras are there but instead stay the course and do the hard work to deliver lasting change and improvement down there.”

The opposition leader, Matthew Guy, said the closure was “unnecessary, premature”.

The eight-unit power station was commissioned in the 1960s and designed to run on brown coal dug from the surrounding Latrobe Valley. It was fully operational from 1971 and supplied up to 22% of Victoria’s electricity needs until its owner, French energy company Engie, announced in November that it would close.

At the time, Alex Keisser said the plant needed a multi-million-dollar upgrade to continue safe operation, and its current market return didn’t justify that investment.

He repeated that argument last week, telling Radio National: “We need $150m by July just to keep the plant safe.”

“We are not at all making money out of the plant before we announced the closure… it was definitely the right commercial decision,” Keisser said.

Engie has maintained the closure was not linked to either the Andrews government’s renewable energy target, or the push by Engie’s parent company to get out of coal-fired power stations.

The Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union said the onus fell on federal and state governments to focus on their energy policy, so workers were not left in the lurch.

“Twenty years ago we had an efficient, profitable and publicly owned electricity system, but successive governments sold these vital public assets in a dash for cash,” national president Tony Maher said. “Now it is workers, families and communities who are paying the price in this lack of foresight.”

Hazelwood was privatised under the Kennett government in 1996.

“What we’ve learnt from the Hazelwood experience is that governments can’t let private companies dictate the timetable for closures,” Maher said. “They must step in to protect the interests of consumers, workers and their communities. Private employers – while reaping the benefits from the community – must also share the responsibility and the cost. They must be compelled to hire all redundant workers until the pool is exhausted.”

Signs thanking the workers of Hazelwood for supplying the region with power, including pro forma signs handed out by the Latrobe City Council, hung in shops throughout the nearby town of Morwell. Tribute books were placed at the pop-up market for residents to record their memories of the station.