How much is a job worth? At Tomago, it’s $2.5 million in taxpayer cash

August 13, 2026 — 5:00am

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Had the Pasha Bulker freighter stayed stranded on a Newcastle beach a few years longer after it ran aground in 2007, perhaps it would have qualified for a federal bailout too.

There is scarcely another ageing industrial facility around the country that hasn’t won a truckload of taxpayer cash.

There’s the $240 million Nyrstar zinc and lead smelter bailout in SA and Tasmania; the $600 million Mount Isa copper smelter bailout; the $2 billion aluminium smelter bailout in Gladstone; and now, $2.5 billion for the largest smelter in the country, Rio Tinto’s Tomago facility near Newcastle.

That equates to $2.5 million for each of the 1000 jobs saved at Tomago. It’s an extraordinary cost to be borne by the NSW and federal taxpayers.........

© The Age