Mill workers await fate

Tachikawa mill workers will find out their fate today.

Plans are being put in place to support more than 100 Tachikawa mill workers, amid hopes a series of meetings today will shed more light on the mill's future.

Receivers KordaMentha moved in to the Vaughan Rd mill on Friday and staff were sent home until further notice.

They plan to sell the business and are considering whether it is viable to continue operating while it's for sale.

Local MPs and Rotorua mayor-elect Steve Chadwick will meet receivers today while the 130 workers will meet with First Union.

Affected workers and family members on the Rotorua Daily Post Facebook page said they were hanging in the balance.

One said he knew little more than what he had read in the paper.

Another said her husband had been affected for the second time after previously having been made redundant from a mill at Rainbow Mountain.

Mrs Chadwick said the news was "devastating for a community our size".

"It's my hope here that first up we can get some financial help for the workers while we sort out what is the future for Tachikawa."

Mrs Chadwick said she would be working with MPs and the Rotorua District Council's economic development arm to see what could be done.

Behind each worker was a family who still needed to be able to eat and pay the bills and that was the priority, she said.

Waiariki MP Te Ururoa Flavell said he'd met with iwi representatives recently to see whether there were opportunities for a partnership to help save the business but in the end the situation had moved too fast.

He said the idea of a partnership with iwi to supply logs had been raised but until they knew more about the problems facing the business it was hard to say whether that was a possibility.

"They're just ideas at the moment. It's really hard to get a handle on things until we can get more information."

He said the possibility of adding an extra 130 workers onto the unemployment line was not what anyone wanted.

Rotorua MP Todd McClay said the priority was finding out more information while working with the Ministry for Social Development and Work and Income to make sure workers were looked after.

He said a number of wood processors around the region had been growing over the past year, so he did not believe this was indicative of the industry. " If there is a way forward we will be exploring it."

On TV One's Q+A yesterday deputy prime minister Bill English said he believed workers would be able to find jobs elsewhere if necessary, which Labour leader David Cunliffe later described as an "obscene cop out".