Hunter hospo on edge as energy stoush puts Tomago at risk
A Hunter hospitality operator says the region’s venues and suppliers would feel a sharp hit if the Tomago aluminium smelter winds down, with weekday crowd numbers and local spend firmly in the danger zone.
Rio Tinto has flagged the site’s future beyond December 2028 hinges on power costs, prompting Industry Minister Tim Ayres to pledge to “exhaust every opportunity” to keep the operation alive. Tomago turns out about 40% of Australia’s aluminium and supports roughly 1,000 direct jobs, so any cutback wouldn’t stop at the gate—it would flow straight through to pubs, cafés and small producers.
At Maltnhops Brewhaus, front-of-house manager Cameron McDonald says just about every nearby town has skin in the game, from Newcastle and Maitland to Swansea and Lake Macquarie—locals “have ties to the smelter at some point or another”, he told The Daily Telegraph.
“There’s a lot of people that are employed through Tomago … that obviously keeps everything turning over in the community,” he said.
“It’s the local shops like bakeries and grocers.”
“The workers spend their money at the pubs and breweries.
“If (the smelter) goes, a lot of our clients will disappear.”
Energy is the sticking point. Tomago chief executive Jerome Dozol says “market proposals received so far show future energy prices are not commercially viable”, adding there’s “significant uncertainty about when renewable projects will be available at the scale we need”.
Canberra’s handling of power bills has become part of the fight. During question time, the Coalition pressed Labor on its Future Made in Australia pitch amid rising energy costs. Separately, documents released under freedom of information show the Department of Industry, Science and Resources is “actively monitoring a number of facilities at financial risk of closure, in particular smelters facing financial viability challenges from ageing capital, global market practices, and energy affordability and availability issues”.
Coalition industry spokesman Alex Hawke argued government settings have bred uncertainty, pointing to recent rescues of heavy industry in Whyalla, Port Pirie and Mount Isa. “If your industrial strategy relies on writing cheques to multinationals every few months, that’s not sovereignty, that’s dependency,” he said.
For hospitality operators across the Hunter, the takeaway is simple: keep Tomago running, or prepare for quieter bars and tighter tills.
Jonathan Jackson, 29th October 2025
