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Speaker 1: Winstone Polp International is expected to make a decision today

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Speaker 1: and whether to indefinitely close two of its mills with

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Speaker 1: more than two hundred jobs on the line. The community

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Speaker 1: affected is it to pay? Who the mayor is? Western Curtain,

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Speaker 1: he's with us this morning, Western, Good morning, Yes, good morning,

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Speaker 1: thanks for being with me. What are you hearing about

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Speaker 1: what's going to happen?

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Speaker 2: Well, my understanding and is ryan that there's been postponed

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Speaker 2: till tomorrow at three o'clock. Winston Media report yesterday, like

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Speaker 2: yesterday syndicated that they want to put it off an

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Speaker 2: extra day. So obviously something's happening in the background there

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Speaker 2: and that you know, obviously it's a big issue for

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Speaker 2: not only the community, but for their company as well.

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Speaker 2: So we'll work with interest tomorrow.

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Speaker 1: What conversations have you had with the government. Are you

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Speaker 1: hopeful that they will be able to help in some way?

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Speaker 2: Yes, I am hopeful. I think there's been a genuine

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Speaker 2: interest in this throughout the government. I understand they are

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Speaker 2: about five ministers involved with the roundtable discussions with not

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Speaker 2: only Winston Pulp but other operators as well. And obviously

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Speaker 2: the energy companies have been heavily involved in how they

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Speaker 2: can help these sorts of businesses that are struggling at

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Speaker 2: times of the year where energy prices are spiked to

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Speaker 2: the point where they cannot function. And of course that's

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Speaker 2: sort of interest to not only the government, but the

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Speaker 2: whole country. So this is not just a local issue.

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Speaker 2: It's a nationwide issue and of course effects our overseas

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Speaker 2: trade as well.

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Speaker 1: Is realistically though, Western there's nothing the government can do

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Speaker 1: in the short term for these jobs, is there really?

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Speaker 2: I think so? I think so when you can consider,

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Speaker 2: of course, well they can actually cap the electricity prices

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Speaker 2: as understand it, they can intervene, and particularly when they're

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Speaker 2: getting a nearly a billion dollars with a profit, and

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Speaker 2: half of that of course goes to the state owned enterprise,

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Speaker 2: which of course is New Zealand government. So you can't

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Speaker 2: tell me that they can take a profit to the

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Speaker 2: tune of the half a billion dollars and put that

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Speaker 2: in the pot and say, well, didn't we do well

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Speaker 2: with the energy pricing profits. It doesn't work that way.

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Speaker 1: So you want Western you're calling against the me effort

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Speaker 1: of here, you're saying you want to cap on wholesale

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Speaker 1: electricity places for mills in your area.

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Speaker 2: Yes, I would suggest that this is not new when

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Speaker 2: you look at other industries and other situations like ty

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Speaker 2: Point for example, they were bailed out earlier and capped

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Speaker 2: the price to allow them to function. The detail of

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Speaker 2: that I haven't got admit, But nevertheless, government have a

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Speaker 2: stake in this and the stakes are do we forego

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Speaker 2: a lot of small businesses not small actually they are

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Speaker 2: investors from overseas Malaysia for example, coming into our country

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Speaker 2: investing into this sort of product that allows us to

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Speaker 2: get export trade. And of course everyone has a stakeholding

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Speaker 2: in that. And I would suggest that the government have

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Speaker 2: a president there that they can actually cap ultricity prices

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Speaker 2: to allow it to get over the line until such

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Speaker 2: time it smooths it out. So if we can't do

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Speaker 2: that as a New Zealand government is New Zealand Inc.

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Speaker 2: Then something's jurassically wrong with you know, our mechanism of

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Speaker 2: actually trading long term. So this is a long term plan. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: this is something that we need to address.

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Speaker 1: All right, Western, thank you very much for that update.

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Speaker 1: It really appreciate that's Western curtainty to a Pehu district

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Speaker 1: mayor who says that that decision has been delayed from

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Speaker 1: Winstone Pulp about the more than two hundred jobs at

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Speaker 1: the two mills until tomorrow. But interested to see what

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Speaker 1: you think about that. Nine two nine two the numbers

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Speaker 1: to text. Capping electricity wholesale rates for the likes of

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Speaker 1: these two mills, and yes there is a deal with

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Speaker 1: t Y, and yes it does mean that you know,

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Speaker 1: they basically will limit their output. But that's quite a

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Speaker 1: different deal to capping a wholesale interest. Sorry, a wholesale

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Speaker 1: electricity rate, isn't it.

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