NSW shipbuilders rally over job security SHIPBUILDERS are worried they could lose their jobs with a drop-off in defence shipbuilding predicted over the next two years. About 300 Sydney shipbuilders voted in favour of an Australia-wide campaign to support local jobs as they gathered for a stopwork meeting outside defence company Thales at Garden Island. Shipbuilders also rallied in Newcastle, Western Australia, South Australia, Victoria and Tasmania on Wednesday. Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU) NSW secretary Tim Ayres said politicians needed to commit to building the defence fleet in Australia. "Right now there's a massive ship building program underway in Australia," Mr Ayres told AAP. The problem that the industry faces is that in the next two years there's what's called the 'valley of death'. There's no ship building projected over the course of those few years. What the federal government needs to do is act urgently and bring forward some of the ship building being planned beyond 2015 to make sure that companies continue to invest, workers continue to be employed. It's about jobs but it's also about national security. The union says defence white papers had identified the need for $250 billion to be spent on navy vessels over the next 30 years.