The engineering house recently said it had made 500 redundancies since December, which was when the first train of the Queensland Curtis LNG plant started up.

While a lot more work completion and demobilisation redundancies will occur this year, the Gladstone Observer reported that workers were already asking why fly-in fly-out workers and 457 visa holders seemed to stay on the island.

In response, Bechtel Gladstone general manager Kevin Berg rejected the suggestion the company was “discriminatory in its approach to redundancies”

“It's critical we have employees with the right skill sets to perform the work we have remaining," he told the newspaper.

"That means individuals need to be high performing and have the capability and credentials required to perform very specific work activities.”

He said the total workforce of 13,600 consisted of 5000 locals, 8600 FIFOs and 18 specialist welders and fitters from the UK on 457 visas.

Berg also said Bechtel’s recruitment programs were always about employing locally first for the skills sets required.