By Casey Neill
Dandenong manufacturer Bombardier has missed out on the state’s single largest train order, placing a question mark over jobs in the region.
On Monday 12 September the State Government announced that the Evolution Rail consortium – including Downer Rail, CRRC and Plenary – would build 65 new high capacity metro trains (HCMT).
The Journal reported in March that Bombardier missing out on the contract was “not a matter that the region would really want to contemplate”.
“The facility at Bombardier is the only Australian-based true manufacturing assembling facility for trains,” Greater Dandenong Council’s business group manager Paul Kearsley said at the time.
“To lose that opportunity to expand its role within Victoria and Australia would be a really missed opportunity.
“Once you lose that facility, what you lose is all the skills.
“We would hope that the supply chain in the region would be able to assist either one of the two other parties.”
The State Government said all 65 trains will be built in Victoria with 60 per cent local content, and partnerships with Toyota, Chisholm Institute and Swinburne University would help to transition automotive manufacturing workers onto the project.
It said the project would create 1100 highly skilled local jobs.
Downer’s Newport manufacturing facility will undergo a $16 million upgrade to build the trains; CRRC will establish a new regional headquarters in Melbourne, and Australia’s only bogie – or rail undercarriage – manufacturer will be established.
A new maintenance and stabling depot in Pakenham East will be built with 87 per cent local content and provide 100 new ongoing jobs.
Greater Dandenong Councillor Peter Brown said his understanding was that under the Evolution plan, the carriage shells would be imported from China and assembled at Newport.
“I am not sinophobic, but I am patriotic and covet Aussie jobs,” he said.
“There is no reason why they could not have been built entirely in Australia from Australian made supply chain inputs.”
“That may have cost more, but I have a real problem with government giving preference to overseas jobs at the expense of local employment.”
The Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union (AMWU) said the decision would secure hundreds of jobs for workers around the state.
“This announcement not only provides security and certainty to hundreds of workers and their industry, it also commits to long-term jobs and training opportunities for a new generation of highly skilled workers,” AMWU state secretary Steve Dargavel said.
