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Speaker 1: Just to go to talk it to those. It's a

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Speaker 1: tough day for the town. They've got news that two

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Speaker 1: hundred and thirty jobs are set to be cut at

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Speaker 1: the pulp and paper mill. Now, Malaysian manufacturer paper manufacturer

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Speaker 1: OG Fiber Solutions owns the place wants to stop producing

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Speaker 1: paper at kin Leaf next June. It's already shutting. It's

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Speaker 1: Penrose plant in Auckland. Joe Gallagher from two was at

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Speaker 1: the meeting with staff this morning. Hey Joe, afternoon, Heather, Joe, Listen,

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Speaker 1: this was always on the cards, wasn't it after Penrose?

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Speaker 2: A Look, you know we've got, you know, facing some

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Speaker 2: pretty tough economic conditions. There's a bit more to this

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Speaker 2: potential closure than Penros. I mean, you've got power and

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Speaker 2: guess prices, you've got an aging plant in a really

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Speaker 2: tough kind of way. We're steady there reflecting today, I'm

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Speaker 2: standing in a place full of trees. Yet the price

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Speaker 2: of domestic logs. You know, OG doesn't own a forest,

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Speaker 2: so they have to they have to purchase the logs

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Speaker 2: at roughly three hundred dollars a ton. So and they're

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Speaker 2: saying they can't, they can't make paper. They need ten

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Speaker 2: tons of chip to make one ton of paper, and

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Speaker 2: they say it's only economical, which is you know kind

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Speaker 2: of you know, adding head into the mix. And it

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Speaker 2: just doesn't make sense when we're in a country full

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Speaker 2: of trees. It's just, you know, it's really hard to take.

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Speaker 1: What happens to these people. I mean, I can't imagine

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Speaker 1: that there are a huge number of jobs.

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Speaker 2: And talk it all no and you know it's been

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Speaker 2: around for over fifty years. You know, it's you know,

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Speaker 2: in the Tokara really was born out of the fact

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Speaker 2: that a lot of people migrated to the area to

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Speaker 2: work at Kindley. So you know a lot of people

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Speaker 2: rely on in the south south of Way Kido rely

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Speaker 2: on Kindley. You know, two hundred and thirty jobs. It's

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Speaker 2: not insignificantly, that's not counting the downstream effect on cafe stoptors,

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Speaker 2: nurses and all those other jobs. And someone said to me, oh,

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Speaker 2: they're building a new countdown down there, you know, I

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Speaker 2: mean it's a pretty tough thing to take to, you know,

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Speaker 2: go from well paid jobs a potentially having to work

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Speaker 2: countdown or move away. It's really people are very very upset.

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Speaker 1: What's going to happen to the paper now as well.

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Speaker 2: Well, I mean essentially they will import paper from their

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Speaker 2: Malaysian plant or any other supplier that they can get.

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Speaker 1: But weren't they, Joe, weren't they recycling our paper? Weren't

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Speaker 1: we sending our paper there for recycling a.

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Speaker 2: Portion of it? But you know that a lot of

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Speaker 2: the stuff that they've got a paper machine there that

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Speaker 2: makes a lot of that packaging stuff that they supply

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Speaker 2: to the fruit industry in different industries, so they will

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Speaker 2: import that and that kind of raises that question. And

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Speaker 2: this is why I'm saying, you know, we need to

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Speaker 2: halt the consultation. We need to sit down. If they're

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Speaker 2: serious about it, we need to talk to people like

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Speaker 2: Shane James. I've got a regional growth Fund. This is

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Speaker 2: a perfect example of why we could get some money,

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Speaker 2: put some horse fare and get some call heads in

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Speaker 2: the room and circle could come up with a way

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Speaker 2: to support can lead in the wider community to continue

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Speaker 2: to make paper in New Zealand.

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Speaker 1: Joe Beast of Black, thank you so much for your time.

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Speaker 1: As Joe Gallagher from.

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Speaker 2: It Too for more or from hither Duplessy Allen Drive

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Speaker 2: listen live to news talks. It'd be from four pm weekdays,

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