They are still in use. And I think they will be for some time yet. However, if I was buying a new unit, I'd be buying VHF.

Who is going to cease monitoring though? DoT have indicted they will cease 24 hr monitoring by 2020. To be completely honest I didn't even know Dot monitored it at all.
Here in WA at least, the Water Police monitor HF 24/7 (Perth and Port Headland) and so likely will the Fremantle Sea Rescue. ACROM in Geographe Bay also monitor HF but I don't know if it is 24/7.

Toph said..
Who is going to cease monitoring though? DoT have indicted they will cease 24 hr monitoring by 2020. To be completely honest I didn't even know Dot monitored it at all.

Can't link it but there is a post on the Tas MAST site regarding the HF proposal.

Regarding HF radio's future as per the proposal Toph linked to:

1) Maritime safety bulletins and weather forecast info will continue to be broadcast on HF (great)
2) Distress and follow-on comms to be supported on HF with DSC for offshore (much like VHF with DSC inshore).

Still a little disappointing that HF distress could not be monitored on analogue HF (as it will be on HF DSC). Quite a few cruising boats (not harbour yachts/racers) still have HF sets, since VHF is generally just to the horison. Given the advances in speech-to-text processing you imagine it should be feasible for automated HF monitoring to easily recognise the phrases "mayday" and "pan-pan" spoken no less than three times, then generate a digital alert which can immediately be followed up by the same human operators that sit there monitoring DSC and Epirb signals.