Rio Tinto must honour their agreement to keep its Gove alumina refinery running in order to keep mining bauxite, the Australian Workers Union says.
Union representatives flew to Darwin this week for meetings with Rio Tinto and the Northern Territory's chief minister to try to reverse Friday's decision to close the refinery, leaving some 1100 people out of work and crushing Nhulunbuy, the neighbouring town of 4000.
Rio intends to keep its bauxite mine running, keeping on 350 employees.
But AWU secretary Paul Howes believes the 2011 renewal of the original 1968 mining lease contains terms that could force Rio to keep operating, as it committed to keeping the refinery open as long as it mines the highly profitable bauxite.
Chief Minister Adam Giles "should drag Rio back to the table by whatever means necessary to make sure they do the right thing and keep the refinery operating", he told reporters on Tuesday.
He says Mr Giles has refused to make the 2011 agreement public. If it's possible for the AWU to take legal action on behalf of workers it will, Mr Howes says.
He derided suggestions that other industries such as tourism or forestry could take the place of mining on the Gove peninsula.
"We'll have 1100 people taking out Sydneysiders on their tinnies to catch a couple of barra? It's ridiculous and insulting," Mr Howes said.
The community was still gobsmacked by the news, said Rio Tinto crane operator Garry Lynch.
"It's the people everyone's forgotten that live in Gove - the small-business owners, the traditional owners, the outlying communities," he said.
"(Rio workers) are not going to be the ones that suffer in this, it will be them. And it's quite disgraceful that Gove's the fourth-largest Territory town and nothing's been done."
He said there had been a lot of "skulduggery" on display in meetings with Rio Tinto and the government over the past two days.
"We want to see that document," Mr Lynch said of the 2011 agreement.
"If money is being lost we'll have to deal with it, but if it's just some sweetheart deal for a minority then I've got an issue with that."
Mr Howes said the government and Rio Tinto were yet to provide details of any contingency plans.
"Its whole culture of secrecy and the veil of darkness that has come over decision-making here in Darwin is very concerning," he said.
