Editorial: Time not on side of mill workers

Brian Pohatu and his partner, Ashley Mosen, will struggle to make ends meet after he lost his job at Tachikawa yesterday. Photo / Stephen Parker

While many of us are gearing up for the festive season, Brian Pohatu and his partner Ashley Mosen along with their two beautiful children Kalicia, 2, and Ozyris, 10 months, will be more worried about how they will pay this week's bills.

Mr Pohatu is just one of 130 Tachikawa Forest Products workers who were made redundant last week when the mill went into liquidation.

The family has no idea what the future holds for them, Mr Pohatu the sole bread-winner of the household feels bad because he can't support his family and he knows it is going to be hard to find work here in Rotorua.

Like all of the workers at Tachikawa, Mr Pohatu isn't looking for a hand out, he just wants to put food on his family's table.

One hope for the workers at the mill is the chance Te Arawa may come to the rescue and look to buy the mill.

While this is a commendable gesture there are two things which concern me about the idea.

First and foremost, if this is to happen, I can see it taking some time - something workers like Mr Pohatu don't really have. He has bills which need paying this week. Mr Pohatu has been told the workers may have to wait to get their redundancy payments and a lot of families are going to struggle.

The second thing is how viable is it for the iwi to take over a business which is in receivership? I'm sure those in the know within the iwi will do all the checks and measures to ensure they are not putting good money on a lame duck.