Today it was announced that the Ford plant in Geelong is set to close.
I visited the city in January for the Socialist Alliance national conference and found it beautiful and familiar, like a somewhat less hilly version of my home town (with a very successful football team in the wrong code...). The similarity doesn't end there: similar tales of the slow death of heavy industry, job losses without adequate transition plans for the workers, youth unemployment, social alienation...
All I can think about today is: how long for Wollongong? How many more times will I be able to drive home and look for the orange glow of the steelworks on the southern horizon?
