I grew up in the shadow of the Holden plant. Its closure is shattering news
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Version 0 of 1. Most visitors to Adelaide have only experienced Elizabeth as a strip of bleak suburbia on the way to the Barossa or the Clare Valley – a detour on route to visit the genteel wine districts. But many local residents live a life far removed from the tourist experience. For those of us who grew up in the shadow of the Holden plant at Elizabeth Vale, the news that it will close in 2017 is shattering. It’s a move that will wreak havoc on many thousands of families and propel the community into an uncertain future. The challenge for policy makers and the community now is to grapple with the difficult question of what do to now. How do we prevent one of Australia’s poorest communities dipping further into poverty and replicating the problems of Detroit’s worst suburbs? Most of Elizabeth’s original residents were attracted by the promise of the great Australian dream. Many set out from England seeking opportunity and what Australia had to offer. For many, the promise delivered with jobs, good weather and affordable housing provided by long serving Liberal premier Thomas Playford. Building communities, subsidising local services and creating jobs was in those days a bipartisan endeavour. The future looked promising. Schools were built and populated, quickly. Technical high schools were established to deliver more employees to a growing manufacturing sector. Families grew. Beautiful parks were established for young families to play. The Lyell McEwin Hospital, still a major teaching hospital seeing 51,000 patients a year, was built. And John Platten, later a Brownlow medallist after a stellar career at Central Districts in the South Australian league, was born. Well-known musician Jimmy Barnes, who arrived from Scotland as a preschooler, was one of Elizabeth’s first citizen. He would later earn the ire of locals when he criticised the suburb and its poverty and crime rates. There is no one in Elizabeth who won’t acknowledge its challenges, but the pride local residents have in their community is as strong as any you’ll find in Western Sydney. When I co-edited a history of Fremont High School in Elizabeth Park in 1995, the year the school was to be closed, one of our interviewees told us, “If you don’t come from Elizabeth you’ll never really understand it.” Among our interview subjects, we found an abiding commitment to social justice, equality and a fair go for all. It is in this context that most Australians won’t be able to fully understand the depth of despair the people of Elizabeth will feel this week. Even those who are not reliant on Holden for income, but who work in the retail sector or one of thousands of local small business providing component parts or services to employees, will have their lives profoundly affected. The Federal electorate of Wakefield, which covers Elizabeth, has the nation's third highest proportion of the workforce employed in manufacturing. The lowest proportion of residents with a university qualification and the third highest proportion of single parent families. One in every 4.6 residents is paid some form of social security benefit. It is frightening to imagine what this data might look like in 2018. Even many of those who think subsidising manufacturing jobs may not be sound economic policy agree that the impact of withdrawing support will be felt in local communities. There is no easy answer. Anyone concerned about the ripple effect must now help to ensure government’s promised assistance packages are generous, well-targeted and include genuine retraining opportunities as well as support services for families. Members of the political class who claim that Holden’s salaries of between $60,000 to $80,000 are the root cause of the problem are likely to be met with disbelief by those who have worked hard to earn a trade, supported by Holden in doing so, and may now have nowhere to go. A Flinders University study showed that 18 months after the closure of Mitsubishi in Adelaide’s southern suburbs, 13% of people had become long term unemployed. Coupled with Elizabeth’s other economic challenges, this would be a disaster. To say governments shouldn’t subsidise job creation is naive and ignores the long term impact on the unemployment, crime, health and education line items in state and federal budgets. It might be too hopeful to expect the federal government will start to move away from this week’s inflammatory rhetoric towards a package that will ensure this important Australian community is not left devastated by this week’s decision. But hope is all many will have left. • The author grew up in Elizabeth. Her brother is a Holden employee Our editors' picks for the day's top news and commentary delivered to your inbox each morning. |