Residents in Whyalla have welcomed the state government's decision to tip the Whyalla steelworks into administration. Workers and business owners say job losses and local business closures have been a continued stressor for locals.
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00:00There was jubilation in Wayala when Sanjeev Gupta first took over the steelworks.
00:06This man is a great Australian.
00:08Now there's just relief that he's gone.
00:10Every one business, the community and the workers, the responses I've had have been
00:15very positive.
00:16I'm actually amazed that it hasn't happened before now.
00:20In this one industry town, GFG's flailing management of the steelworks has caused major
00:25issues for small businesses in the last 12 months, with many local contractors joining
00:30the long list of creditors owed money to, some even without a direct link feeling the
00:35pinch.
00:36We're now getting it where a lot of those smaller businesses aren't being paid by the
00:40contractors to GFG because GFG hasn't been paying their bills.
00:45I think every business in town's felt it.
00:47It's obviously been a tough probably six to 12 months, certainly since the blast furnace
00:52has been offline, things have got tougher and tougher for the community.
00:57And after reaching an impasse with the state government, many are glad to see GFG's time
01:01at the steelworks come to an end.
01:03Something needed to change.
01:05Obviously we couldn't continue down this road of uncertainty.
01:08GFG have played a pretty hard game.
01:11The umpire's called time on it and I think we need to move forward.
01:15Now it's done the hard yards.
01:17The town is looking forward to the next chapter for both the steelworks and itself.
01:22And some hope for Wyala to reinvent itself and move away from its reliance on the steel
01:27industry.
01:28We've got the rail system, we've got the deep sea port, we've got the natural resource,
01:32we've got the sun, we've got the wind.
01:34It just all has to fall into place.
01:36There's a lot of work to be done at the steelworks to pull the steelworks back to where it should
01:42be.
01:43The hard work starts tomorrow.
01:45A town heading again into the unknown, but hopeful the next step will be forward, not
01:49back.