Latest / Best of Business / Joe Gallagher: E tū negotiations specialist on Kinleith Mill halting paper production and putting jobs on the line

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Joe Gallagher: E tū negotiations specialist on Kinleith Mill halting paper production and putting jobs on the line · Best of Business

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talks. There'd be
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: follow this and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio,
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: just to go.
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: To talk it to those. It's a tough day for
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: the town. They've got news that two hundred and thirty
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: jobs are set to be cut at the pulp and
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  Speaker 2: paper mill. Now Malaysian manufacturer paper manufacturer og Fiber Solutions
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: owns the place wants to stop producing paper at kin
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  Speaker 2: Leaf next June. It's already shutting. It's Penrose plant in Auckland.
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: Joe Gallagher from two was at the meeting with staff
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  Speaker 2: this morning.
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  Speaker 3: Hey Joe, afternoon, Heather, Joe, Listen.
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  Speaker 2: This was always on the cards, wasn't it after Penrose.
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  Speaker 3: A Look, you know we've got, you know, facing some
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  Speaker 3: pretty tough economic conditions. There's a bit more to this
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  Speaker 3: potential closure than Penrose. I mean, you've got power and
• 0:53
  Speaker 3: guest prices, you've got an aging plant in a really
• 0:57
  Speaker 3: tough kind of way. We're standing there reflecting today. I'm
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: standing in a place full of trees, yet the price
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  Speaker 3: of domestic blogs. You know, OGI doesn't own a forest,
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  Speaker 3: so they have to they have to purchase the logs
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  Speaker 3: at roughly three hundred dollars a ton, so and they're
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: saying they can't they can't make paper. They need ten
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  Speaker 3: tons of chip to make one ton of paper. And
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  Speaker 3: they say it's only economical, which is you know, kind
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  Speaker 3: of you know, adding head into the mix. And it
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  Speaker 3: just doesn't make sense when we're in a country full
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  Speaker 3: of trees. It's just, you know, it's really hard to take.
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  Speaker 2: What happens to these people. I mean, I can't imagine
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  Speaker 2: that there are a huge number of jobs in Talkarora No,
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  Speaker 2: and you.
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  Speaker 3: Know it's been around for over fifty years. You know,
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  Speaker 3: it's you know, in the Tokura really was born out
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  Speaker 3: of the fact that a lot of people are migrated
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  Speaker 3: to the area to work at Kindley. So you know,
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  Speaker 3: a lot of people rely on in the south south
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  Speaker 3: of way Kato rely on Kindley. You know, two hundred
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  Speaker 3: and thirty jobs. It's not insignificantly, that's not counting the
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  Speaker 3: downstream effect on cafes, doctors, nurses and all those other jobs.
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  Speaker 3: And someone said to me, oh, they're building a new
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  Speaker 3: countdown down there, you know, I mean it's a pretty
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  Speaker 3: tough thing to take to go from well paid jobs,
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  Speaker 3: so potentially having good work comesdown or move away. It's
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  Speaker 3: really people are very very upset, Joe.
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  Speaker 2: What's going to happen to the paper now as well?
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  Speaker 3: Well? I mean, essentially they will import paper from their
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  Speaker 3: Malaysian plant or any other supplier that they can get.
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  Speaker 3: But weren't they, Joe, weren't.
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  Speaker 2: They recycling our paper? Weren't we sending our paper there
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  Speaker 2: for recycling a portion of it?
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  Speaker 3: But you know that a lot of the stuff that
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  Speaker 3: they've got a paper machine there that makes a lot
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  Speaker 3: of that packaging stuff that they supply to the fruit
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  Speaker 3: industry in different industries, so they will import that and
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  Speaker 3: that kind of raises that question. And this is why
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  Speaker 3: I'm saying, you know, we need to halt the consultation.
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  Speaker 3: We need to sit down. If they're serious about it,
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  Speaker 3: we need to talk to people like change James. We've
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  Speaker 3: got a regional Growth Fund if this is a perfect
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  Speaker 3: example of why we could get some money, put some
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  Speaker 3: horse fare in it, get some cool heads in the room,
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  Speaker 3: and circle could come up with a way to support
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  Speaker 3: can leap in the wider community to continue to make
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  Speaker 3: paper in New Zealand.
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  Speaker 2: Joe, Beast of Black, thank you so much for your
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: time as Joe Gallagher from It Too.
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