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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2023-09-26 Daily Xml
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Whyalla Steelworks

Mr HUGHES (Giles) (15:12): Before getting onto the Prime Minister's and the Premier's visit to Whyalla yesterday, I want to mark the passing of part of our industrial history, not just of this state but of the nation, with the closure of the coke ovens on 15 September in Whyalla after 55 years and 55 days of operation. It was a very special occasion on Friday 15 September. Unfortunately, I had a range of other commitments and so could not get there. It was one of those days when there was sadness but also anticipation.

I am proud of the fact that three generations of my family have worked in the steelworks, including myself. Indeed, one of my sons now works at the steelworks as a tradie, as a leading hand fitter. The coke ovens were somewhat personal to me, though I never worked there. It is a tough place to work—it is hot, there are fumes, there is dust—but for many years my mum worked as a cleaner at the coke ovens.

As a young lad, not long after I got my licence sometimes when my dad could not pick up my mum I would go down there and pick her up and she would often be black from the coke. Being a cleaner in a coke oven is a Sisyphean task—it never ends; it goes on and on and on. But strangely enough, she enjoyed working there. She enjoyed the company. One of the things about the people who worked there, in that toughest of environments, was the high degree, mostly, of camaraderie, so it was for a lot of people a special place to work. Many, many people have worked there over the years.

For many years, I have been the chair of the Environment Consultation Group in Whyalla that brings together the steelworks, the community representatives and the EPA. The coke ovens used to be one of those places that would get fairly regular attention and not for the usual reasons you would think—atmospheric emissions, even though there was some of that. I am told there were some partial solutions applied, but for many years the coke ovens discharged ammonia into False Bay, and ammonia acts as—well, it is—a fertiliser.

It caused very significant epiphyte growth on seagrass beds. The coke ovens were largely responsible for the destruction or degradation of 20 square kilometres of seagrass beds in False Bay. In more recent years, over the last couple of decades, work did happen to reduce that with the introduction of reed beds and other elements to reduce the ammonia discharge and that did have an impact.

We are in transition at Whyalla and there are going to be a number of steps and the closure of the coke ovens is one of those steps. There is going to be a very significant, close to half a billion dollars, investment in an electric arc furnace, an electric arc furnace that can be run in conjunction with renewables. Eventually, we will see the closure of the blast furnace. At some point, the blast furnace is going to need a major reline if it is going to continue, and that is a very costly process.

The way forward, the transition, is an electric arc furnace but then to use the enormous magnetite resource on our doorstep we need to make that move to direct reduction iron-making in Whyalla. That will open up a whole new future in relation to, potentially, iron briquettes, ongoing intermediate steel product and finished product, but product that will then be green, assuming that we have hydrogen commercially available at scale as the replacement for coking coal when it is used as a reductant and an energy source.

I congratulate all those people who over the years have worked at the coke ovens. It has served us well, but it is now time to look at a new future, a greener future and a future where we add value to our mineral resources.

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