The Financial Review in Feb 2014 wrote that Ford was was closing its Geelong manufacturing works, ending 300 jobs by June and the remaining 210 by 2016. Alcoa reported that its ageing aluminium smelter at Point Henry would close in August, along with a rolling mill, at a cost of 800 jobs. Shell’s refining and retailing business was sold in February to Swiss owners. None of these operations were globally competitive. The year before Qantas had already axed 300 maintenance jobs at the nearby Avalon Airport. Target had sacked 260 from its Geelong head office. For a town that had only 200,000 citizens, this was a disaster. Manufacturing, the sector that had accounted for 36% of Geelong’s workforce in 1971, was down to 10% 40 years later and was dropping rapidly.
The narrative of doom and gloom, job losses and the decline of the manufacturing industry, looms large just now. And so it should do. People who have worked loyally for Ford, Holden, Toyota and Qantas for decades will find themselves redundant within two years. Even more people who work in industries supplying Ford, Holden, Toyota and Qantas with parts and services will close down soon after. Big cities like Adelaide and Melbourne will be hard hit, but smaller rural cities will be devastated.
Note Cunningham Pier stretching into the background.
looking out to Corio Bay.
Ferris Wheel on the sand.
Increased tourism had already become Geelong’s goal! Jan Mitchell presented the concept for the Waterfront Bollard Walk to the town hall as far back as 1994. Her 103 bollards, carved in reclaimed timber pier pylons, were eventually placed in 48 different sites along the city’s shore line. Each of the 48 groups of bollards is distinctive, although they are all caricatures of famous local people or famous local professions. The Bollard Walk is quite long but Colin the Tour Guide was an excellent source of information about the city's history, from boom to bust to hopefully boom again.
The tourist can also experience other attractions along the foreshore, including the restored Carousel c1892 at Cunningham Pier. The waterfront carousel sits in a glass pavilion and overlooks the harbour with spectacular views out to Corio Bay. It was originally an Armitage Herschell Carousel of New York that was created in 1892 and was later used by families in the gold town of Castlemaine. Of the 36 horses and two chariots, 24 are actually original; the remaining twelve horses were built using many of the original processes and materials from the USA. The carousel tells the story of King Arthur and Camelot. The Waterfront Train tours run on a 20 minutes circuit from the Carousel to Eastern beach pools, much to the children's delight.
Cunningham Pier was a key part of the City port, from the mid 1850s when it opened to the late 1970s when it closed. With the modernisation of Geelong’s ports, Cunningham Pier was no longer used for cargo and looked decrepit. More recently the goods shed were turned into a huge nightclub, and restaurants, sailing clubs and entertainment facilities moved in. Tourism boomed, at least in summer.
Cunningham Pier was a key part of the City port, from the mid 1850s when it opened to the late 1970s when it closed. With the modernisation of Geelong’s ports, Cunningham Pier was no longer used for cargo and looked decrepit. More recently the goods shed were turned into a huge nightclub, and restaurants, sailing clubs and entertainment facilities moved in. Tourism boomed, at least in summer.
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Now read Debbie Cuthbertson’s article on 2nd March 2014, “Geelong, Shepparton: Can art bring new life to our ravaged regional cities”, which appeared in The Age straight after the Ford closures. While major employers such as Ford, Alcoa and Qantas shed many hundreds of employees in Geelong and will not survive, nascent creative industries are popping up and major arts and cultural projects will begin. These green shoots are signs of a possible culture-led economic regeneration that has proven itself interstate and overseas. Work has begun on one of Geelong's major initiatives, a $45 million library and heritage centre set to open in 2015, funded with money from the City of Greater Geelong and state and federal governments. The Figment participatory community arts festival, shared between Geelong and the USA city of Boston, returned for a second year in 2014. In May, the council hosted Mouth to Mountain, an 80-kilometre extreme art walk from the You Yangs to the mouth of the Barwon River.
Geelong Performing Arts Centre, in its current location
These projects have the potential to provide a serious economic boost, as well as an emotional salve, to communities that are doing it tough. They give Geelong a glimpse of the kind of transformations that have seen other manufacturing cities eg Newcastle in NSW, Leeds and Cardiff in Britain. These cities were said to emerge anew, with serious cultural credentials, out of the rubble of what was once their industrial lifeblood.
Made In Geelong, a project inspired by the Renew Newcastle Scheme of giving vacant premises to artists, sadly seems to have lapsed after a initial flurry of activity. Resistance from landlords is believed to have contributed. In recent months, one of the premises in a vintage market precinct set up in a former wool mill and glass factory in Geelong's north has been forced to close. The biggest and most long-standing cultural renewal project - the proposed $140 million redevelopment of Geelong Performing Arts Centre (GPAC) - had ready-to-go plans and hopefully favourable political timing in an election year, amid fears of a regional backlash.
Geelong's new mayor said he would rather see GPAC relocated at the pier, alongside a national photographic gallery and a new convention centre. Relocating GPAC to the pier would attract more tourists to the waterfront and lure visitors off cruise ships that are docked there. And he would announce a major event each April, with big international acts.
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There are already examples of industrial and non-industrial centres being re-purposed for more cultural pursuits. The former Federal Woollen Mills were built in Geelong in 1912 to service the booming wool industry. Set on land that was donated to the Commonwealth by the Geelong Harbour Trust, the mills closed in the 1970s and are now the site of an art and design precinct. The old mills also have several recycled industrial building material markets and antique markets. A Temperance Hall was built on the corner of Little Malop St and Aitchison Place in 1858. This distinctive conservative classical building used to have a Barrabool freestone facade. The hall was demolished in 1978 to enable the construction of Geelong Performing Arts Centre.
And there are examples of existing cultural institutions becoming bigger, smarter and more attractive, in order to double and treble the number of visitors who will come to Geelong in the next year. See the 2015 plans for the Geelong Art Gallery which originally opened in 1897.
Former Federal Woollen Mills, built in Geelong in 1912
now part of an art, design centre and antiques market.
None of the new major arts and cultural projects mooted for places like Geelong can go ahead, without substantial funding from the state government. A conservative state government would not have wanted to pour money into dying industrial centres; after all the Conservatives ruined Qantas in the first place by privatising it back in 1992. Will anything change now that we have a progressive state government?