Thanks in no small part to the supermarket chain, within two short years the biggest state in the Commonwealth will have no ability to refine fuel and oil products.

The problem started a few months ago with the announcement by Shell that they would shut their refinery at Clyde in Sydney. Last week Caltex announced that their Sydney refinery at Kurnell would also be shut within two years.

It’s a major blow to the workers employed in the facilities. It will result in a hit to motorists at the bowsers, and, worst of all, it’s a huge problem for the state and the nation – because very soon, if we’re not really careful, we’ll be completely reliant on overseas sources for our nation’s energy security.

The AWU is proud to represent the workers employed by Caltex at Kurnell and we’re not going to sit idly by and watch these jobs and critical industries be moved offshore.

We’re obviously extremely concerned for the livelihoods of our members employed at Kurnell but equally we are concerned about the future for the nation’s fuel and oil supplies.

Being an island nation Australia needs to have certainty when it comes to energy security. Having secure and reliable fuel supplies is critically important for any nation, but even more so for Australia, which, thanks to the tyranny of distance, is dependent on a secure source of fuel.

Australia already imports a significant proportion of our fuel supplies. Of course, this is likely to grow to keep pace with the growing population and economy. But we need to ask the question – by simply shutting down our own facilities and relying completely on imports, how reliable will the supply lines be? And what will happen to our country if supply chains from Asia are disrupted by natural disasters or other global events? Do we want to have no ability whatsoever to refine our own fuel?

Caltex’s decision to walk away from their profitable – profitable being the operative word here – refinery at Kurnell and import fuels from Singapore also raises questions about the ethics in the marketing coming from the people that sell Caltex fuel.

So what does all this have to do with Woolworths?

A large proportion of the fuel currently refined at Kurnell is sold through service stations co-branded with Woolworths. The supermarket giant has taken great pride in recent months boasting about how ‘Aussie’ they are.

They’ve changed their branding from being the “Fresh food people” to become “Australia’s fresh food people” and they boast about how much produce they source from Australian suppliers.

However, as Caltex’s largest customer and the people who retail Caltex’s fuel, it is disappointing to say the least that Woolworths haven’t done more to stay true to their “Aussie” branding.

I think that if Woolworths really want to be “Australian through and through” as their ads state, then they need to ensure that they source Australian refined fuel for bowsers.

To try to save the Australian refined fuel, and Australian jobs, the AWU and the workers at Caltex have launched a campaign calling on Australians to tell Woolworths to do the right thing. Ads about the campaign started this week and appear in this paper today.

Unfortunately, as soon as we launched the campaign Woolworths sent of a flurry of letters from their lawyers threatening legal action.

One of their letters went as far as to threaten us with injunctions every time we questioned Woolworth’s procurement policies. We haven’t been intimidated by the legal threats from Woolworths and, despite their posturing, we’ve decided to continue running our campaign because we believe that it’s the right thing to do.

We believe in saving Australian jobs wherever possible. And we believe it’s the right of Australian motorists to know what’s happening to the country’s fuel supplies and to know that corporate giants might be putting our fuel security at risk.

There are some who say that closing down Kurnell is a good thing. That the refinery is an ugly blight on the landscape that would be better used for parks.

Those people have failed to understand that being able to refine fuel is a big requirement for a functioning society in the 21st century. I believe that Australia needs to be a country that actually makes things, grows things, and develops things.

AWU members make things. They grow things. They do real jobs. They do hard jobs. And yes, refineries may not be pretty but, if we want to guarantee our future, we need to be able to fuel it at the same time.

Paul Howes is the national secretary of the AWU.