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HEPETEMA 14, 2024
Mills ‘could have been saved’ ‘You can’t tell me that pricing of energy is not the primary cause of these mill closures,’ – Weston Kirton. By Paul Charman
The Government could have used dividends from surging energy prices to save the two Ruapehu mills which closed this week, costing 230 jobs, the district mayor says. Weston Kirton told the News $1 billion in additional profits were made from energy in the last 12 months and the Government had reaped the benefit. “It would have been easy for them to put aside a fraction of that money and put it into the hands of Winstone Pulp, just to get them across the line.” This week Social Development Minister Louise Upston blamed multiple factors for the closures of the mills at Tangiwai and Kariori. She said a short-term bandaid approach such as subsidising Winstone Pulp would not have made a difference. Kirton disagreed. He pointed to statements from Winstone Pulp’s chief Mike Ryan over several years, warning of the danger of surging energy prices. “When Winstone Pulp takes its products overseas, when compared to their global competitors, they are paying six times more for energy per tonne. Their competitors are paying between $60 and $100 per kilowatt,
The death knell sounded for the Winstone pulp mill this week
while Winstone is paying $700 per kilowatt,” Kirton said. “You can’t tell me that pricing of energy is not the primary cause of these mill closures.” His comments were backed by those of Regional Development and Associate Energy Minister Shane Jones, who said this week that the power of profiteering energy companies, the so-called “gentailers”, needed to be broken to make energy prices more competitive. “We are going to see this
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continually unless we get our hands around the throat of the corporate leadership that is driving New Zealand into a place of gross insecurity because our power prices are not competitive,” Jones said. Kirton predicted the problem would be underlined as other industries faced closures across the country in coming weeks. “…our big challenge now is the welfare of the community and how we are going to join the dots with various agencies out to help families whose bread winner has lost their
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job and needs to get their lives back into some sort of order,” Kirton said. “They have a couple of months pay to tide them over. I understand a few have jobs at the King Country Pet Food New Zealand Limited, Taumarunui, but most will be moving on, many to Australia.” Kirton warned without a job to go or contacts going to Australia would carry risks for some. “Just wandering around looking for a mill job would be a fruitless exercise I think you’d have to know
what you are going to and whether you have connections over there to help. “I am really gutted that this has happened on top of all the other things Ruapehu has been hit with, such as the ski fields have yet to be resolved, and the Chateau closed. To have 230 jobs go in our district is devastating. It’s only a small community there and losing so many jobs going just hollows it out. “We struggle paying bills here as it is, and our council will notice the loss of so many ratepayers.”