Justin Wallace: First Union Spokesperson on the calls for the Government to rescue New Zealand's pulp and paper mills

The Government is being urged to step in to save New Zealand paper and pulp mills. 

Winstone's pulp and timber mills near Ohakune are looking to close due to high power costs, with 300 jobs on the line. 

Following this, an Auckland paper recycling pulp mill has put forward a proposal to close - blaming rising energy costs as one of several issues. 

First Union Spokesperson Justin Wallace told Mike Hosking the Government can't allow this work to be outsourced. 

He says if the work goes overseas, places like Auckland's plant will have 75 families that will lose a breadwinner. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
What does it, I mean, think about it. What does
it say about a country when the price of doing
business becomes so high you can't do business anymore? The
price of power is up hundreds of percent as a result.
This week we've seen two businesses looking at closing up.
OG Fiber Solutions closing their Auckland paper recycling plant, and
in the RUPA who district told you this a couple
of days ago, Winstone are up for at least a

(00:20):
couple of weeks both their mills. The first union spokesperson,
Justin Wallace's, was with us on this justin morning.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
Is this morning it has I mean the members when
they had the meeting the other morning, they sort of caught.
They were sort of had wind that something might be
up because there was some emails going around about some
cost saving measures that were happening on site. But being
told on the morning that there's a potential closure definitely

(00:48):
hit them hard.

Speaker 1 (00:48):
When you say on site, do you represent OG or
the RuPay who people are both?

Speaker 2 (00:54):
No, No, we represent the OG plant as well as
it two the other union who represent on that site too.

Speaker 1 (00:59):
See the OG seem to have how much of the
story is purely the power price they can't afford it,
versus the business might not be as good as the
one wherever it is in Malaysia that can take over
from them.

Speaker 2 (01:11):
Like, the ironic thing about this is that this plant
takes a lot of recycled paper from Auckland and other
parts of the country and turn it into pop and
turn it into paper. Right. The ironic thing about this
is that this place has to close because they can't
tap into reasonable costs, reasonable cost pricing for power of

(01:33):
another renewable resource. So we've got a situation here where
a recycled plant is having to close because they can't
get enough power at the right price to be able
to operate.

Speaker 1 (01:44):
Is so you're telling me it's a going concern. It's
a proper business. This is not just an excuse. I mean,
there's no excuse for the price of power.

Speaker 2 (01:50):
I get that.

Speaker 1 (01:50):
But this is not a business that was sort of
falling over or struggling anyway.

Speaker 2 (01:54):
No. Well, I mean, you know it had a renewable resource, right,
it was tapped into the recycling sector like most others.
So yes, okay, it had its operation where she's like
most of the businesses have been dealing since you know,
pre and after COVID. I mean, we're not making excuses
on that, but when the members are told that, you know,
it's the cost of running is so high now because
of the power prices that they're having to shut down.

(02:17):
You know, that was one of the major factors for
that decision. Now we're going through a process of consultation.
There may be an endgame out of it. I hear
that there's been some discussions in central government. I hear that,
you know, people are talking about this, which is great.
But the concerning part about this, Mike, is it's not
just the seventy five childs. It's seventy five families, you know. Yeah,

(02:39):
I mean I.

Speaker 1 (02:40):
Get to see the problem is that. I mean, I
don't know what the solution is. The government looking at
bringing an L and G and they might have to
do that, or will burn some more coal or something
like that. But you can't have a scenario where a business,
a viable business, can't do business because somebody else has
buggered the economy.

Speaker 2 (02:57):
Yeah, But the thing the other point about it too
much because it's successive governments. Right, I'm not here to
point the finger at anyone in some respects, But the
concerning part is is that this will be potentially the endgame.
We'll be sending product overseas to be milled and then
brought back in at a cheaper rate. But what will
happen is, in the case of this plant is seventy

(03:20):
five families will have a bread owner who won't have
a job. And they're talking about people trying to work.
They're talking about helping working class and working people in
New Zealand. Well, we need to start protecting the manufacturing
and people's jobs. Like I said the other day, we
can argue as much as we like about how many
row cones are on the road, but we should be

(03:40):
making sure that people have jobs.

Speaker 1 (03:43):
I tend to agree with you.

Speaker 2 (03:44):
Justin.

Speaker 1 (03:44):
Nice to talk to you, appreciate it. Justin Wallace Worth's
union organizer.

Speaker 2 (03:48):
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