The closure of two mills in the central North Island will leave “a huge vacuum” in the community, a worker says – and “half of the people” he spoke to in the wake of the announcement are considering moving to Australia, he added.
More than 230 workers will lose their jobs after Winstone Pulp International, the Ruapehu District’s largest employer, confirmed it would shutter the Tangiwai Sawmill and Karioi Pulpmill.
The company cited “the dual impacts of internationally uncompetitive energy prices in New Zealand, and the relatively low current and forecast market prices for pulp and timber”.
Jude Sinai, a union delegate and worker at Karioi Pulpmill, told Breakfast this morning that workers were optimistic before yesterday.
“But, once we got into the hui, they ripped the Band-Aid pretty quick… it was quite shattering.”
Sinai said he was talking to one of the younger workers last night.
‘He’s quite a hard fella but I could see him welling up’
“He’s saying, ‘I’ve got to go to Aussie’,” Sinai said. “‘There’s nothing for me here to hold onto’.
“When I was talking to his old man yesterday, he’s quite a hard fella, but I could see him welling up.
“There was all that mixed emotion yesterday, then it finally sunk in that we’re no longer going back.”
The impact on the communities in the area was “huge”, he added.
“We had a bit of a debrief last night, it happened down at the local, where people were just really coming out with a bit of truth and spilling their heart – and half of the people I was talking to, they’re looking at Australia.
“They’ve got whānau over there that are all saying, ‘Come over here’, you know, ‘The grass is greener’.
“But I’ve been there and done that, and it’s not that easy.”
‘A huge impact, a huge vacuum’
Sinai said a lot of the workers had no back-up plan: “We’ve had all our eggs in this basket, I’m afraid.
“This has happened quite suddenly for us.”
Only about 2000-2500 people live in the area, he continued: “This is a really, really tight community.
“This is a huge impact, a huge vacuum.”
Young families were going to be uprooted, Sinai said.
“For me, I’ve got four tamariki. Two are still in college, one’s at uni and one’s just gone out on her own.
“It’s a huge impact. I don’t want to upset where they’re at in their schooling, and I’m just one of many within this community that really rely on that whanaungatanga, that kotahitanga, where we all come together.
“We rely heavily on each other to support the community in that way – and so when that goes, that’s where you’ll really feel the ripple effect going out and [it] will probably continue to do so for years to come I would imagine.
“It’s not just the 239 jobs directly in the mill, it’s everyone else around that.”
‘This is heartbreaking’
Yesterday, one long-time employee told 1News: “We’re going to be splitting up.
“My son’s heading to Australia to find work. I’m staying behind to look after the rest of the family, but this is heartbreaking.”
Another said: “At the moment, I think it’s just a wave of sadness, basically.”
A third added: “I’m from here and we’re probably going to have to uplift and move away.”
E Tū union representative Gina Williams said: “There was this lump in the air that sort of sat there.
“You could physically feel it, that mamae just settling on people, what it means – and finally, that they’d fought the hardest fight they could and got to the end of it, and that is it.”
