Geelong's Ford factory closure reshaped lives and economy a decade on

Tony Travers is a Ford man.

He worked at Ford for 28 years and still proudly wears a jacket with the big blue logo.

He is also one of 17 in his family who worked at Geelong's Ford factory across its 90-year history.

For him, the decade since it closed has been difficult.

It's hard to sum up how important the factory was to Geelong.

Mr Travers describes the suburb of Norlane as the town that Ford built because it was full of factory workers and their families.

During World War II, the plant manufactured long-range fuel tanks for aircraft.

When the war ended, it moulded or stamped together large metal sheets into car panels and created the company's well-known straight-six engines.

The plant became a microcosm of Australian multiculturalism, drawing postwar migrants to Geelong for the consistent work.

Parts for cars including the Falcon, Fairlane and Territory were made in the sprawling Norlane complex and taken to Broadmeadows, where workers welded the panels together, painted the shells and inserted the Geelong-built engines.

Ford said in its heyday both factories employed about 5,000 people.

But that all changed in 2013, when management announced it would close the plants.

The American car maker initially announced about 1,200 manufacturing jobs would become redundant at both sites.

When the doors closed on October 7, 2016, many workers had already moved on or been redeployed.

The writing had been on the wall for years.

In 2013, Ford president Bob Graziano said the company lost more than $600 million over five years on its Australian operations and its costs were "double that of Europe and nearly four times Ford in Asia".

Mr Travers was selected to stay on at the factory, working on prototypes, until 2017.

When he finished, he found a variety of short-term work, building camper trailers, filling potholes and replacing traffic signs.

But he says none of it was as good as his time at Ford.

"You knew your job every day. When I transitioned to these other places, they did things completely differently and it made it extremely difficult … you had to get your mind out of the Ford way of doing things," he said.

Now retired, he remembers the satisfaction of creating such useful products.

The closure was such a seismic shift for many of the 600 workers who finished 10 years ago, their bosses gave them a strategy to deal with the disruption to their routine after the closures.

"They said on Monday morning just drive into the work car park as per normal, park your car, sit there for a few minutes, and then drive home," Mr Travers said.

It touches on a wider feeling among former Ford workers, who talk about being part of a Ford family, in clearly defined jobs.

"You're almost institutionalised," says Mr Travers's former colleague, Henry Fuller, who worked at Ford Geelong for 35 years.

Mr Fuller remembers the years between 2013 and 2016 as tough.

In the final days of the Geelong factory, part of Anthony Anderson's job was to help his colleagues find other work.

He found the mock interviews the hardest part.

"People just hadn't done an interview for, say, 25 years. To get them writing resumes and having the confidence to go and present themselves to a new employer wasn't easy," he said.

Mr Anderson agrees many had worked with Ford for so long they felt institutionalised.

So his advice was simple.

"When you finish, you will not find the same wages and conditions or the attitude that's on the shop floor here.

"You won't necessarily find a comfortable job first off. You may go through four or five jobs," he said.

He told many to take time off after the closure, advice he took himself, before he became secretary and treasurer of the Geelong Trades Hall Council.

While Ford stopped making cars in Australia, it said it employed about 1,000 people at a research facility in Geelong, testing grounds in the You Yangs, and its Campbellfield site.

The economic road back

After the closure, the unemployment rate in Geelong was 6.5 per cent. It has now improved to 4.5 per cent.

In Hume, including Broadmeadows, it was 9.9 per cent at the end of 2016. Now it is 6.4 per cent.

Meanwhile, the city's manufacturing sector has diversified.

Sykes Rowing received $50,000 through the $29.5 million Geelong Region Innovation and Investment Fund, which was set up to support local businesses after the closure.

The money was spent on setting up an engineering team and buying a rigger table.

As the business has evolved, that table isn't just used to make riggers (the metal arms that oars connect to on rowing boats).

It's now also used to make components for drones.

Managing director Mark Nothnagel said the $50,000 funding was vital.

"I think it was integral to us being able to understand where we were, compared to all our international competitors," he said.

While his business has survived, Mr Nothnagel said Geelong's economy has not fully recovered.

Geelong Mayor Stretch Kontelj disagrees.

"There's no question that Geelong has moved on from the closure of manufacturing here at Ford in 2016.

"We're now diversified, we've got the health sector, education, our social insurers, tourism, major events, arts and culture, advanced manufacturing and agribusiness," he said.

Out with the old, in with the new

The former Ford factory is still an imposing red-brick presence as you drive into Geelong, housing two warehouses for an online retailer, steel and auto businesses, and a defence manufacturer that makes components for F-35 fighter jets.

But Cr Kontelj wants part of the site to become a film studio.

"We've already had some discussions with the owners' group here of how we can use some of the big spaces here, potentially for another Docklands-type movie-making endeavour," he said.

Meanwhile, in Broadmeadows there are plans for a massive new data centre at the former Ford site, drawing strong local opposition.

"I don't believe that a data centre here in what is very valuable employment land is the best outcome for our community," Hume Mayor Carly Moore said.

But Cr Moore said development of the vacant site was important to the community.

"I think to continue to drive past and see nothing's been happening for a really long time, it has an impact on all of us."

Tom Barnes, from the Australian Catholic University, surveyed 428 former Australian automotive workers, including those from Geelong and Broadmeadows.

"There is a tale of two cities when it comes to Ford. I think Geelong's economy has diversified over the last 10 to 20 years in quite a successful way," Dr Barnes said.

But he said the growth had not been as strong in Broadmeadows.

"The impact was huge. The workers were primarily older men, often from an immigrant background, often from a non-English-speaking background.

Henry Fuller agrees it hasn't been easy but he says if he had his time again, he wouldn't change a thing.