After months of uncertainty over the future of the struggling lead smelter in Port Pirie, a multi-million-dollar government bailout has been met with welcome relief by local workers and business owners. While it's offered new hope, some analysts say it will take more than a cash injection to secure the future of smelting in Australia and the towns built around them.
00:00For three generations, cafe manager Jodie Cagney's family have run businesses in Port Pirie.
00:08The state and federal rescue package of the town's smelter has boosted her confidence.
00:13I think it's a sense of relief because we've all been sort of waiting and been a bit worried about the whole situation.
00:19Near Star directly employs 900 people and hundreds more local jobs and businesses rely on it.
00:25Pirie is a town built around the plant.
00:27We don't want to see the smelter shut down, we don't want to have to up and leave and go to another town or city.
00:33The community here is great, it's a beautiful place to bring up family.
00:36Everyone I feel like in Pirie's is involved in the smelters one way or another and it's just great to see that it's getting to keep going forward.
00:45There's renewed hope the $135 million lifeline to modernise the smelter will secure its long term future.
00:52At this shop, 50% of sales come from Near Star uniform contracts.
00:56We've been through this same thing quite a few times before and hopefully secures the future for another 150 years in the town.
01:05While jobs are safer now, industry experts warn the bailout won't solve all Near Star's problems.
01:11A key challenge for the company is competing with China for the raw materials needed to make steel, zinc and other metals.
01:18China has set about a very deliberate policy of dominating the supply of essential raw materials and it's using that market dominance to dictate prices.
01:30Near Star says the smelter's future viability is linked to it pivoting to produce in-demand critical metals that could subsidise lead and zinc production.
01:39But there are still questions over how an Australian plant can compete with China on energy and labour costs.
01:45This could well be the start of a ginormous Kodak moment and the Australian company bailed out Kodak when it promised to keep making film in Australia.
01:54It did for a while and then it walked away too.
01:58A town hoping there isn't a similar development here.
02:05A town hope that is a really good deal for the present.
02:10A town hope that can be the last day.
02:14A town, the third time in the plant, the defiance of the marketplace, the food supply of the stock, the food supply of the power of the stock, the food supply of the stock.
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