“It’s a whole range of emotions,” says former Whyalla Steelworks worker Steve McMillan, 56.

“There are people who have worked there for 30-plus years, and it’s the end of an era.”

This includes McMillan, who has lived in the ‘Steel City’ for 41 years and completed his apprenticeship at the Whyalla Steelworks in 1988 before working at the Whyalla Hospital in the early 2000s.

He now works full-time as the local Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU) representative, advocating on behalf of the hundreds of steelworks workers yesterday given their marching orders.

After five months of attempting to restart the steelworks’ ageing blast furnace, OneSteel Manufacturing administrators KordaMentha – who have been in charge of the site since February 2025 – switched off the old piece of machinery for the last time yesterday.

That means 500 direct employees and 100 labour hire workers will lose their jobs at Whyalla.

In response, the South Australian and federal governments announced a new $10 million package for the hundreds of workers to help them get back on their feet.

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Full redundancy entitlements have been promised to retrenched workers, potentially costing the state and federal governments some $60 to $80 million, and new jobs at businesses in the region, including with mining giant BHP and construction supplies company Hallett Group, are also potentially available.

But McMillan says it is still a “sad time” at Whyalla.

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“It’s an intergenerational town,” he said.

“There are people who are currently working at the blast furnace whose fathers or grandfathers worked there.

“It’s a sad time for them, for sure.”

It was a feeling shared by the city’s Mayor Phill Stone, who told InDaily the city was “relieved” but with a sense of “trepidation”.

“At least we can start moving forward,” Stone said.

“Obviously we feel for those workers that will ultimately be retrenched, but we know that the administrators are making efforts in redeployment.”

He said there would be some workers who would be disappointed that the blast furnace was shut down, but others “who will say ‘thank goodness’”.

“In a perfect world [the blast furnace] would have lasted until the new owners were in place, but unfortunately we’re not in that perfect world,” Stone said.

The city – SA’s fourth most populous at 21,000 residents – now faces years without a blast furnace at the steelworks.

The blast furnace integral in the creation of steel and is used for smelting.

Yesterday, the SA Treasurer Tom Koutsantonis confirmed the facility would receive steel ‘blooms’ – semi-finished blocks of steel ready for the rolling mill. This would enable the continued production of steel products.

Any buyer of the steelworks will have to construct a brand-new furnace, potentially costing billions of dollars.

One potential buyer – Indian giant Jindal Steel International – revealed to InDaily in July its plans to build an electric arc furnace.

M Resources is the other bidder and is owned by Australian billionaire Matt Latimore. That company told InDaily it would partner with an ‘A-Team’ to design and construct a “low-emissions steel mill” at Whyalla.

But these plans are still years in the making, with the AMWU warning it might take three or four years for a replacement furnace to be built.

Local federal member Tom Venning has been vocal in calling on the government to “start fixing the fundamentals” at Whyalla.

“How can the government justify more than a billion dollars in taxpayer support when hundreds of workers are now staring down the barrel of redundancy?” the Liberal MP said.

“The Whyalla community has carried the steelworks through some incredibly difficult times. They deserve certainty, stability and a future. Instead, they are getting another blow to the jobs and industry their town was built around.

“The people of Whyalla deserve a viable steelworks, secure jobs and a genuine long-term plan, not another short-term political fix that leaves workers carrying the uncertainty.”