Speaker 1: Well, good, yeah, great, all right, let's jump in. So, Paul,
Speaker 1: late last year you went to Wyala in South Australia,
Speaker 1: a place that I believe once held great promise as
Speaker 1: the steel capital of Australia. Can you tell me a
Speaker 1: bit about the town, what it was like when you arrived.
Speaker 2: Well, it's a trick to get there from Sydney, I
Speaker 2: can tell you. It's four hours north of Adelaide, about
Speaker 2: four hundred k's and it's a long, flat road.
Speaker 1: Investigative journalist Paul Barry is probably most recognizable as the
Speaker 1: face and voice of ABC's Media Watch. At least that's
Speaker 1: the reception he got in the Wayala pubs.
Speaker 2: It was extraordinary. Just walk into this bar and they'll go, oh,
Speaker 2: what are you doing here?
Speaker 1: He wasn't just there to drink with the locals. When
Speaker 1: he visited in December last year, the steel works was
Speaker 1: at a standstill. Contractors hadn't been paid and staff were
Speaker 1: facing mass layoffs. Paul was there to find out how
Speaker 1: things got so bad, what.
Speaker 2: Happens to the generations of steel workers and their families,
Speaker 2: who who've worked in the business, and what about all
Speaker 2: the others who rely on the steel works for the jobs.
Speaker 2: People are very worried and justifiably so.
Speaker 1: From Schwartz Media, I'm Ruby Jones. This is seven AM
Speaker 1: Today investigative journalist Paul Barry on the billionaire who brought
Speaker 1: Wayala to the brink and how the town can be saved.
Speaker 1: It's Tuesday, January twenty eighth, So Paul to start with,
Speaker 1: tell me a bit about Wayala and why the steel
Speaker 1: works there are so important.
Speaker 2: So it's a town that has twenty two thousand people.
Speaker 2: It was going to be much bigger. It's kind of
Speaker 2: like Canberra. It's sort of laid out very spaciously, big
Speaker 2: wide boulevards, trees down the middle, sometimes, lots of brick
Speaker 2: built public buildings and a very very friendly town. I
Speaker 2: just got a beautiful welcome when I went there. Wyela
Speaker 2: was started back in the nineteen forties as a shipyard
Speaker 2: and then in the sixties as a steel works by BHP.
Speaker 3: Indus Field Development. Then South Australia takes a big step
Speaker 3: forward with the opening will be huge forty million pounds
Speaker 3: steel works in Wyala.
Speaker 2: It's the only steel works in Australia that makes the
Speaker 2: only primary steel works that makes what's called long steel,
Speaker 2: and that is Girder's rails, the stuff that is used
Speaker 2: in the building industry, and if you didn't make it
Speaker 2: at Whyala, you'd basically have to import it.
Speaker 3: From these automated smelters and rollers will come the vital
Speaker 3: steel to feed the hungry growth of Australia's building, car
Speaker 3: making and engineering industries.
Speaker 2: Also, the steel works is very important to the town.
Speaker 2: Although only about eleven hundred people or one thousand people
Speaker 2: now work there, there's something like four thousand jobs in
Speaker 2: the town estimated to be dependent on it. And that's
Speaker 2: not far off half the workforce in Wyala. So if
Speaker 2: you got rid of the steel works, if it went
Speaker 2: busted and wasn't rescued, Wyler's future would be very much
Speaker 2: in doubt. I don't know what would happen to it.
Speaker 3: And now the country's most important news deal making plan.
Speaker 1: And so what did people who spoke to Inwyela say
Speaker 1: about their jobs to how fearful are they of the
Speaker 1: future of Whyala.
Speaker 2: They're incredibly fearful. Wailer is old. It's like sixty sixty
Speaker 2: years old at least, it's desperately in need of investment,
Speaker 2: desperately in need of maintenance. It went bust back in
Speaker 2: twenty sixteen when Ariam owned it and it was then
Speaker 2: rescued after a year in administration, and the guy who
Speaker 2: bought it, Sanjeev Gupta, was sort of seen as a
Speaker 2: savior and it looked like all the problems were solved.
Speaker 4: Uncertainly in terms of the future of this plant is
Speaker 4: now over. We have a lot of work to do
Speaker 4: together and you know, a great future ahead, but we
Speaker 4: need to work together and make changes because this is
Speaker 4: not currently a sustainable, world class plant. It needs to
Speaker 4: become one. We're close to finish.
Speaker 2: Sanjiv Gupta is a is a British Indian business and
Speaker 2: he started off as a commodities trader and about ten
Speaker 2: years ago he started up buying steelworks around the world.
Speaker 2: All these steel works were losing money. They're all pretty desperate.
Speaker 2: They're all competing or struggling to compete against the Vietnamese
Speaker 2: and the Chinese and the Koreans who turned this stuff
Speaker 2: out in massive quantities much cheaper.
Speaker 4: We were not just another company looking to make a
Speaker 4: quick book out of a distressed opportunity. It's first almost
Speaker 4: a family business and I the guard this as part
Speaker 4: of my family.
Speaker 2: Essentially, what this guy Sanjiv Gupta promised, and whatever was
Speaker 2: it would all be modernized, it would be expanded, they
Speaker 2: would use renewable energy, it would make green steel and
Speaker 2: it would be a magnificent future. It's a wonderful feeling
Speaker 2: for our community.
Speaker 5: Everyone's feeling the sign from business workers, people there in there, retired.
Speaker 2: Everybody's feeling this feeling of relief.
Speaker 5: And the more that we're hearing about mister Gupture hearing
Speaker 5: about liberty, the better we're feeling.
Speaker 1: And so what has happened.
Speaker 2: None of that stuff has happened. There hasn't been any investment.
Speaker 2: The coke ovens have packed up all together. The blast
Speaker 2: furnace has been out of action for half a year.
Speaker 2: It's now back in action again marginally, but people are
Speaker 2: getting more and more worried that it's going to go
Speaker 2: bust quite soon. I talked to a creditor, a guy
Speaker 2: called Jim Watson, who runs an engineering consulting business. He
Speaker 2: relied almost entirely on Wyler for his business, and he
Speaker 2: built it up to a stage where he had seventeen people.
Speaker 2: He persuaded a lot of people to come up, professional
Speaker 2: people to come up from Adelaide with their families, had
Speaker 2: a half a million dollar contract coming into early twenty
Speaker 2: twenty four, all going fine, and suddenly the work drives up.
Speaker 2: There is no work. He has to lay people off.
Speaker 2: They go back to Adelaide. He won't be able to
Speaker 2: get them back. He's now laid more people off. What
Speaker 2: happens to him if the steel works goes down. It's
Speaker 2: not a good outlook.
Speaker 1: And so as people who rely on the steel works
Speaker 1: have been dealing with this, what has said Ajiev Gupta
Speaker 1: been doing.
Speaker 2: In the middle of the crisis last year, when all
Speaker 2: his creditors in Wahalaaras are sort of jumping up and
Speaker 2: down and not being paid, Gupta is in Sydney buying
Speaker 2: a twelve and a half million dollar apartment on the
Speaker 2: waterfront from Broadcast to John Laws. He's at the same time,
Speaker 2: just up the road from there, he's got a thirty
Speaker 2: four million dollar house that he's got plans for renovate
Speaker 2: a cost of at least ten million dollars. And so
Speaker 2: here's a guy who's brought up a whole bunch of
Speaker 2: ailing steelworks, promising in all of these places that he's
Speaker 2: going to transform them. And in each of these places,
Speaker 2: the story is the same. Basically, the steelworks is now
Speaker 2: on the brink of bankruptcy. Some of them actually have
Speaker 2: gone bankrupt. He's being chased by people who are trying
Speaker 2: to wind up all these companies. Wallas Steelworks has been
Speaker 2: rocked by revelations. Owner Sanjeev Gupta's overseas officers have been
Speaker 2: searched by serious fraud investigators.
Speaker 5: Police wanting more information in their investigations. After the Serious
Speaker 5: fraud Officers in the UK launched a probe into alleged
Speaker 5: money laundering within GfG Alliance, he reportedly owes almost a
Speaker 5: billion dollars to administrators of his collapsed financier.
Speaker 2: So it's an absolute hot mess. And as the crisis
Speaker 2: is hitting all these poor people who work at the plant,
Speaker 2: or who are contractors to the plant, or have supplied
Speaker 2: stuff to the plant, who aren't getting paid, he is
Speaker 2: out there spending like a drunken sailor. So Wyler is,
Speaker 2: in a way one of the better ones. It's not
Speaker 2: quite so far down the tube as the ones in
Speaker 2: Europe are. But what's happened in Europe gives you a
Speaker 2: very strong clue of what's going to happen here, which
Speaker 2: is that promises aren't kept. He keeps on paying the
Speaker 2: workers for a bit and then eventually it all falls
Speaker 2: apart and it all goes bust.
Speaker 1: After the break, how to bring Wyala back from the brink? Paul,
Speaker 1: I suppose there is a bigger question that goes beyond
Speaker 1: the failures of management, and that is whether or not
Speaker 1: it is actually possible to make the Wyla Steel works viable.
Speaker 1: Will it ever produce steel the way that it used to?
Speaker 2: Absolutely? I mean there is a question about can Australia
Speaker 2: produced steel competitively Koreans, the Chinese and Vietnamese. They invest
Speaker 2: much more money, have invested much more money. They produce
Speaker 2: on a much larger scale. We probably can't compete with them.
Speaker 2: But do you let your steel works go bust and
Speaker 2: take a town down with it with twenty two thousand people?
Speaker 2: What do you do with them in terms of relocating
Speaker 2: them or putting them on the doll or finding jobs
Speaker 2: for them. So it may be that you can't make
Speaker 2: steel as cheaply as some of these competitors, but there's
Speaker 2: a cost in giving it up as well. And unless
Speaker 2: you can find other jobs to go into Waiela, you're
Speaker 2: looking at the town that is doomed. So I think
Speaker 2: there are very strong arguments for trying to say if
Speaker 2: the steel works, and it's not in terms of patching
Speaker 2: up an old one, it is in terms of building
Speaker 2: a new one that is powered by renewable energy.
Speaker 1: And do you think that that is a viable option
Speaker 1: for Wyler green steel?
Speaker 2: Look, I'm no expert, but the experts tell me that
Speaker 2: it is because that's the way that steel around the
Speaker 2: world is moving. All these steel companies are being forced
Speaker 2: basically to cut their emissions, and so you've got governments
Speaker 2: around the world which are stepping in Britain or in
Speaker 2: Europe to fund that transition to green steel. They say
Speaker 2: that Wyler has a lot of natural advantages. It's got
Speaker 2: iron ore called magnetite, which is very very high ferrost
Speaker 2: content in absolute abundance in the hills nearby. So that's
Speaker 2: a very important thing. Magnetite isn't a very common iron ore,
Speaker 2: and it's what you need if you're going to get
Speaker 2: rid of the old traditional coke blast furnaces. You need
Speaker 2: something with a high iron content. So that's one big plus.
Speaker 2: It's got a huge supply of iron ore. It's got
Speaker 2: a railway from where these iron ore mines might be.
Speaker 2: It's got a railway from the steel works to customers,
Speaker 2: it's got a deep water port, it's got massive amount
Speaker 2: of renewable energy because South Australia the wind is blowing
Speaker 2: constantly and the sunshines all the time. And it's also
Speaker 2: got a workforce. It's got a skilled workforce. So yes,
Speaker 2: I think it has a lot of stuff going for it,
Speaker 2: but it does need commitment from the government, which you
Speaker 2: would have to put in some money, and it needs
Speaker 2: commitment from an international steel company which would need to
Speaker 2: go Yeah, we want to be there. We think with
Speaker 2: this can be done. There is evidence that there are
Speaker 2: people out there who are prepared to do that. The
Speaker 2: South Australian government called for expressions of interest in making
Speaker 2: green iron, which is kind of the previous step to
Speaker 2: green steel, and they're fifty nine companies. I think it
Speaker 2: was said, yes, we're interested. And the South Australian government
Speaker 2: is also building a green hydrogen plant which is going
Speaker 2: to happen whatever happens to Wuyala, and that's supposedly going
Speaker 2: to be online in twenty twenty six. So there's a
Speaker 2: whole bunch of reasons why green steel could definitely work
Speaker 2: in Wyala not worth giving up now.
Speaker 1: Right, But it sounds like for any of that to
Speaker 1: happen you would need not only government intervention government funds,
Speaker 1: but you would need Gupta to go so that another
Speaker 1: company could come in.
Speaker 2: Yeah, damn right, there's no way, as they say, there's
Speaker 2: no way this is going to happen unless you get
Speaker 2: the keys to the place. You have to persuade him
Speaker 2: to step aside, and that is unlikely to happen, judging
Speaker 2: by the way he's hung on to all these other
Speaker 2: businesses he has around the world. So it's not an
Speaker 2: easy job to get him out, that's for sure. But
Speaker 2: I think you do need to get him out because
Speaker 2: he ain't got the money to do it.
Speaker 1: Obviously, a federal election is on the cards in the
Speaker 1: next few months. How does that complicate the situation.
Speaker 2: Well, I think it's very hard to see a coalition
Speaker 2: government putting a lot of taxpayer money into green steel.
Speaker 2: I mean it would involve renewable energy and supporting industry,
Speaker 2: neither of which the coalition is very keen on, and
Speaker 2: it's got a policy to rely on nuclear power in
Speaker 2: twenty forty. So the chances of Whyala being rescued and modernized.
Speaker 2: With the Coalition in the driving seat, it seems to
Speaker 2: me a very slim So Labour has a problem, which
Speaker 2: is if this place is to be rescued and to
Speaker 2: be its future to be secured, Labour needs to act.
Speaker 2: That means that it's not just a oh, this is
Speaker 2: an interesting story that's going to bubble along for a bit.
Speaker 2: This is actually a bit of a crisis for Wyler
Speaker 2: because there's only what two or three months until the
Speaker 2: next election. Unless something is done before then, it's really
Speaker 2: hard to see how this future can be secured.
Speaker 1: Paul, thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 2: It's pleasure.
Speaker 1: You can read Paul Barry's reporting from Wyala at the
Speaker 1: monthly dot com dot Au. Also in the news today,
Speaker 1: the Trump administration has launched widespread immigration raids in Chicago.
Speaker 1: The arrests are part of a mass deportation plan targeting
Speaker 1: undocumented immigrants in the United States. Last week, President Trump
Speaker 1: signed a number of executive orders relating to immigration, including
Speaker 1: restricting legal pathways to come to the US and attempting
Speaker 1: to ban birthright citizenship. His administration has also given deportation
Speaker 1: powers to a broad range of law enforcement agencies. And
Speaker 1: Australia's Foreign Minister, Penny Wong has urged unity across the
Speaker 1: political divide in a speech at Auschwitz marking the eightieth
Speaker 1: anniversary of the Concentration Camps liberation. Senator Wong was joined
Speaker 1: in Poland by Attorney General Marc Dreyfuss and Anti Semitism
Speaker 1: Envoy Jillian Siegel to commemorate International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Last week,
Speaker 1: National Cabinet met to discuss the rise in anti Semitic
Speaker 1: attacks in Australia, announcing they would start a register to
Speaker 1: track anti Semitic incidents. The Coalition has criticized the government's
Speaker 1: approaches insufficient. I'm Ruby Jones. This is seven am. See
Speaker 1: tomorrow for an interview with former Australian of the Year
Speaker 1: Grace Tame.