Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Weston Kirton: Ruapehu District Mayor calling for Government to step in and save two mills facing closure due to rising energy costs

Transcript

Weston Kirton: Ruapehu District Mayor calling for Government to step in and save two mills facing closure due to rising energy costs · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Winstone Polp International is expected to make a decision today
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: and whether to indefinitely close two of its mills with
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: more than two hundred jobs on the line. The community
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: affected is it to pay? Who the mayor is? Western Curtain,
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: he's with us this morning, Western, Good morning, Yes, good morning,
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: thanks for being with me. What are you hearing about
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: what's going to happen?
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: Well, my understanding and is ryan that there's been postponed
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: till tomorrow at three o'clock. Winston Media report yesterday, like
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: yesterday syndicated that they want to put it off an
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: extra day. So obviously something's happening in the background there
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: and that you know, obviously it's a big issue for
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: not only the community, but for their company as well.
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: So we'll work with interest tomorrow.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: What conversations have you had with the government. Are you
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: hopeful that they will be able to help in some way?
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: Yes, I am hopeful. I think there's been a genuine
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: interest in this throughout the government. I understand they are
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: about five ministers involved with the roundtable discussions with not
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: only Winston Pulp but other operators as well. And obviously
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: the energy companies have been heavily involved in how they
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: can help these sorts of businesses that are struggling at
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: times of the year where energy prices are spiked to
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: the point where they cannot function. And of course that's
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: sort of interest to not only the government, but the
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: whole country. So this is not just a local issue.
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: It's a nationwide issue and of course effects our overseas
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: trade as well.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: Is realistically though, Western there's nothing the government can do
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: in the short term for these jobs, is there really?
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: I think so? I think so when you can consider,
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: of course, well they can actually cap the electricity prices
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: as understand it, they can intervene, and particularly when they're
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: getting a nearly a billion dollars with a profit, and
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: half of that of course goes to the state owned enterprise,
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: which of course is New Zealand government. So you can't
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: tell me that they can take a profit to the
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: tune of the half a billion dollars and put that
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: in the pot and say, well, didn't we do well
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: with the energy pricing profits. It doesn't work that way.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: So you want Western you're calling against the me effort
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: of here, you're saying you want to cap on wholesale
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: electricity places for mills in your area.
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: Yes, I would suggest that this is not new when
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: you look at other industries and other situations like ty
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: Point for example, they were bailed out earlier and capped
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: the price to allow them to function. The detail of
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: that I haven't got admit, But nevertheless, government have a
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: stake in this and the stakes are do we forego
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: a lot of small businesses not small actually they are
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: investors from overseas Malaysia for example, coming into our country
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: investing into this sort of product that allows us to
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: get export trade. And of course everyone has a stakeholding
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: in that. And I would suggest that the government have
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: a president there that they can actually cap ultricity prices
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: to allow it to get over the line until such
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: time it smooths it out. So if we can't do
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: that as a New Zealand government is New Zealand Inc.
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: Then something's jurassically wrong with you know, our mechanism of
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: actually trading long term. So this is a long term plan. Yeah,
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: this is something that we need to address.
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: All right, Western, thank you very much for that update.
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: It really appreciate that's Western curtainty to a Pehu district
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: mayor who says that that decision has been delayed from
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: Winstone Pulp about the more than two hundred jobs at
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: the two mills until tomorrow. But interested to see what
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: you think about that. Nine two nine two the numbers
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: to text. Capping electricity wholesale rates for the likes of
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: these two mills, and yes there is a deal with
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: t Y, and yes it does mean that you know,
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: they basically will limit their output. But that's quite a
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: different deal to capping a wholesale interest. Sorry, a wholesale
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: electricity rate, isn't it.
• 3:56
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• 4:00
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• 4:01
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