Weatherill wears a good news badge
It’s a good news week, insists a frustrated Premier of South Australia.
As workers at Caroma’s Norwood factory ponder the loss of 76 jobs, Jay Weatherill today pointed to success stories where “for every job lost, another is created”.
On that score, the workers at SA builder BADGE Constructions would agree – they’ve just secured the $51 million build of retailer ALDI’s distribution centre at Regency Park.
BADGE is a success story, showing how a local commercial construction company can be headquartered in Adelaide and have half of its projects interstate.
Weatherill knows the Caroma workers are feeling down – it’s just that he’s getting sick of media focus on bad news.
“What we can’t get out there is the the great stories,” he told FIVEaa’s breakfast program today.
“For the workers at Caroma it’s an awful thing and our thoughts are with them and their families.”
He was responding to reporter’s long list of factory closures in SA this year.
Weatherill, however, had his own list and BADGE Contructions was at the top.
“We’ve seen today BADGE has won a $70 million contract to build ALDI’s distribution centre and ALDI itself is creating 900 jobs in the future,” the Premier said.
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The list was comprehensive: D’Vine Ripe, Hewlett Packard, Zen Energy, Weeks Construction, Saab Defence Industries, RedArc and more.
Over at BADGE’s head office, plans are already underway for the ADLI job – which is worth $51 million, not the $70 million reported elsewhere.
“Construction starts immediately; we’re onsite next week,” BADGE’s managing director Jim Whiting told InDaily.
“We have a team coming off a defence project at Edindurgh so it gives them some continuity of work.
“We’ll also probably supplement that team with some extra workers.”
Whiting sees the ALDI contract as a big plus in a sector where new work is hard to find.
“People like ALDI know what they want and what they’re doing.
“We bid for a similar job in Queensland and missed out on that but it was a learning curve for us and through persistence we’ve now won this job.”
Whiting said he expects ALDI’s supermarkets to start construction very soon as the retailer aims to establish a strong SA presence within 12 months.
BADGE is a story that contradicts the perception that South Australia is being over-run by interstate firms on construction jobs.
The head office is here at Keswick, and they have offices in Brisbane, Maroochydore and Perth. Around half the work on their books at the moment is interstate.
The commercial and industrial construction company has a turnover of more than $300 million, employs 200 staff and partners with other builders on a range of projects.
“We’re really busy,” Whiting said.
“It’s not boom time, but we’re seeing a steady flow of work.
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“In Adelaide a lot of public sector money was focused on the new RAH and the Adelaide Oval so there’s not much public tender work.
“The BER projects in schools meant that a lot of capital improvements at schools have been built so there’s a delay now.
“On the other hand there’s growth in the aged care sector.”
As Jay Weatherill points out, there’s clearly movement in the retail sector.
ALDI made it clear earlier this year that it planned to expand its operations into SA and Western Australia.
It is investing between $200 million and $300 million in SA alone over the next few years.
It’s a home brand deep discounter and the benefits go beyond construction; there will be 900 jobs and added competition in the grocery market.
After expanding into Australia in 2001, ALDI now has more than 10 per cent of the grocery market in the eastern states and Canberra.
It now operates more than 350 stores with annual sales around $5.3 billion.
By Monday BADGE will start building the 35,000 square-metre distribution centre at Regency Park.
Weatherill understands the troubles at Caroma’s factory – but he’s frustrated that the rest of the story isn’t being heard.
He would have been encouraged by today’s official jobs data for SA; it shows the trend unemployment rate has continued its downward move to 6.3 per cent for September, compared to 6.5 per cent in August.
The less reliable and more volatile seasonally adjusted figures was back up to 6.5 per cent after a fall to 5.7 per cent the previous month.
Looking deeper into the ABS figures, local economist Michael O’Neil sees some concerns.
“A key finding is the much lower participation rate at 62.0 per cent in SA compared to 64.6 per cent nationally which reflects the much tighter labour market in South Australia, where more people are likely to have reduced job search activity and are ‘not in the labour force’,” O’Neil, executive director of the SA Centre for Economic Studies says.
“It’s an underlying sign of weakness in the labour market.
“A key issue on competitiveness of the SA economy needs far greater focus and attention and most likely significant policy changes are required.”
