'Burden on top of a burden': Small town still reeling from big job losses

Two years on from the mill closures, Raetihi is holding on but jobs in the small central North Island town are scarce, rents are high and shops are empty. With an election looming, locals tell Mike Scott they don’t expect miracles – they just want the basics to work again. 

When Turuhia Edmonds went to work, his day began with a 100m walk to the pick-up spot outside Ruapehu Farm Supplies on Raetihi’s main street. 

As a shift worker at the Karioi pulp mill, Edmonds’ pick-up time was either 5.15am or 5.15pm. 

The freezing winter mornings were most memorable, with deep frosts or snow on the ground and sleepy homes puffing smoke. 

Even if it was early, it was busy. Shearing vans collected crews; forestry workers headed off in utes and trucks. 

The evening pick-ups were livelier, with kids on bikes or kicking rugby balls and friendly waves from passing cars. 

“Just the normal sort of things you’d see in a small town,” Edmonds says. 

The pick-ups, run by Dempsey’s, the local transport company, were part of the deal for shift workers at Karioi pulp mill, toiling two days on, two nights on, then four days off. 

The vans collected workers from towns like Raetihi, where about a quarter of the mill’s workforce lived. 

Edmonds, born and bred in the town of about 1100, was a relative newcomer to the mill. 

Previously, he was a shearer who had chased work around the world. A back injury, first suffered in his late 20s, ended that gig. 

Family told him to try the mill, so he did, taking a pay cut to get in the door, from the high $90,000s to about $68,000. 

But the mill represented opportunity. Training and graft saw him quickly go from general hand to trainee and then a fully fledged operator working shifts, and by 2024 he was on close to $120,000. 

Everyone there knew it was “life-changing money”, he says. It even meant he could start house hunting. 

The shuttered Karioi pulp mill near Mt Ruapehu. Its closure, with the Tangiwai sawmill, cost about 230 jobs. Photo / Mike Scott 

“I had just got pre-approval from the bank ... only three weeks before they announced it.” 

Edmonds’ house plans halted when Winstone Pulp International first declared it would close the Karioi pulp mill and the Tangiwai sawmill, blaming sustained increases in electricity costs. 

The closures were confirmed on September 10, 2024, and about 230 jobs, including Edmonds’, disappeared – a serious blow for nearby towns including Ōhakune, Waiōuru, Taihape and Raetihi. 

The impact didn’t end with the Winstone employees but rippled through other workforces, Edmonds says. 

Truck deliveries of logs to the sawmill ceased, as did work for contractors who hauled chip and slash between the mills. 

“There’s the cleaners and our service people who used to come in and clean all of our control rooms and the entire mill.” 

The closures immediately tested the resilience of the small towns and especially Raetihi, which in Edmonds’ view was already in decline. 

On his 100m walk to the pick-up, he would pass old and worn homes unlikely to be insulated, he says. 

On the main street where he waited, there were already shuttered shops, with more now. 

When Edmonds went to the primary school, the roll was about 300. It is now 89. 

Even before the closures, the 2023 Census shows the median personal income in Raetihi was $33,200, $8300 short of the national figure. 

It’s tough to swallow for Edmonds, who came back to town in 2018 to stay – a big reason was that he loved his childhood in Raetihi. He still goes fishing, eeling and hunting with his whānau. 

“I watch a few stories about Tokoroa and Murupara and all this. We’re very similar in those problems with drugs and alcohol and high unemployment and poverty. 

“I think the longer it has to go on where they struggle through that, I think it becomes something that becomes just a normal part of life.” 

Closed shops are a common sight on Raetihi's main street. Photo / Mike Scott 

After the closures, numerous reports claimed redundant mill workers and their families would up sticks and leave. 

The Ngā Waihua o Paerangi Trust, formerly Ngāti Rangi Trust, has monitored 186 of the 213 former workers on its list. 

Nineteen, about 10%, are working in Australia. Almost half, 92, are living or working outside the Ruapehu district, chief executive Helen Leahy says. 

Some found work outside the district and kept their families at home, but the travel costs and time apart became unsustainable. High petrol prices have only added to the strain. 

“Culturally, economically, socially this has been an enormous loss for our local community,” Leahy says. 

“We have heard of grandmothers crying at the fact that their children have had to leave the area; taking precious mokopuna with them. 

“Former WPI workers were not only employees. They were also parents, coaches, volunteers, trustees and people who contributed to local organisations and the wider community.” 

Of those monitored, 105, or 56.5%, are in work. A further 30 are in seasonal or casual jobs, and 30 are looking. 

Nearly all have taken a substantial drop in pay, and with a large skilled workforce suddenly job hunting, competition for even minimum-wage roles has increased across Ruapehu communities. 

Leahy cautions that the raw numbers don’t tell the whole story. 

“The employment figures should not be taken to mean the effects of the closures have been resolved simply because someone has returned to some form of work.” 

The Tangiwai sawmill was closed in October 2024. Photo / Mike Scott 

Set out like cutlery for giants, long-bladed chainsaws sit on the tables in the front room of Te Korowai o Wainuiārua’s offices. 

A class teaching forestry skills to people seeking work has finished for the day, the gear left ready for the morning session. 

The iwi collective represents the descendants of Uenuku, Tamahaki and Tamakana, and in 2025 its Treaty settlement with the Crown became law. 

Chief executive Te Moananui Rameka, 10 months into the job, says the loss of people, piled on top of living in one of the most disadvantaged regions, breeds misery and desperation. 

“What follows is chaos,” he says. 

“When jobs disappear, what do you do? ... You have to go somewhere else if you can. Households lose income, businesses lose customers, the whole region starts to degrade. 

“You can see it in people’s faces ... you see people struggling, deciding what to buy, what’s a priority on their shopping list today, because they have less and less money.” 

Chair Aiden Gilbert says decisions made long ago still shape the present. 

“A hundred years ago, 50 years ago, even 30 years ago, and 25 years ago, they are still taking effect on us, how we behave today.” 

Te Korowai o Wainuiārua chair Aiden Gilbert, who has led the iwi collective since 2007, at work in its Raetihi offices. Photo / Mike Scott 

New decisions still confound him, he says, such as the Government’s refusal to help with rising electricity costs and keep the two mills open. 

He points to Rio Tinto’s Tiwai smelter, which he says enjoys subsidised power, “but we can’t even get the subsidy to keep this mill open”. 

Gilbert fears the Government’s next decisions will make things worse in a place where many rely on welfare. 

“I believe the Crown is now thinking about, well, how much [welfare] can we actually do away with?” 

Instead of growing “the crumbs that we call a quantum” – the $21.7 million that was part of the recent Treaty settlement meant to lift the iwi’s future – there will be an expectation or demand to plug gaps left by lost benefits, he believes. 

Rameka backs up Gilbert – the iwi will be expected to “step into that void”, he says. 

“And fundamentally, we will anyway, because that is our responsibility ... but, at the same time, you’ve got to help us. 

“Just because [a settlement’s] been signed doesn’t mean our job has been done.” 

Mt Ruapehu glows pink in the evening light. Photo / Mike Scott 

Raetihi has been a movie set more than once, and you can see why. 

Wide streets, old historic frontages. The snow and glaciers on Mt Ruapehu shine under the spring sun. There are native forests to trek, rivers to fish and bike paths to cycle. 

What’s not to like? 

Craig Hughes and his wife chose it from Auckland 12 years ago, buying a small farm and planting it up with fruit trees and berries. 

“I’m in full support of this little community. It’s great living here.” 

He was winding down towards retirement when his go-getter wife came home at the start of the year and told him she had bought him a restaurant. 

“I said, ‘You did what?’” 

The previous owners were selling. The cafe had stopped paying its way after the mills closed, Hughes says. 

Craig Hughes preps food in the kitchen of Robin's Nest, the Raetihi restaurant his wife bought for him as a surprise. Photo / Mike Scott 

So in January the couple took over the old Coach Cafe, renamed it Robin’s Nest Bistro, and got down to business. 

The town had no sit-down restaurant, he says. 

“They were all takeaways. I wanted somewhere comfortable to eat, not expensive. You can sit down, relax, and then go. I’m not here to make millions of dollars ... this is my retirement plan.” 

Across the street from Robin’s Nest sits a row of six closed shops and buildings. Hughes reckons a lack of trade isn’t the only reason. 

“They’ve been shut for a long time because they’re owned by someone else. Not living here.” 

Given the chance, he’d fix that himself. 

“If I won money, that’s what I’d do. I’d buy them, do them up.” 

Winter was quiet, he admits. One recent move to lift trade was opening earlier for lunch, but even that proved frustrating and expensive. 

Extending his liquor licence to cover the afternoon cost about $5000 and plenty of time. 

Hughes has been a long-time Greens voter yet found himself eyeing a split vote, drawn to Act and the promise of less red tape for people like him. 

“The only good thing I’ve heard [Act leader David] Seymour say is, he was going to help the small businesses.” 

Ruapehu Mayor Weston Kirton says the district needs “a bit of capital injection”. Photo / Mike Scott 

Ruapehu Mayor Weston Kirton would love to help the workers who lost their jobs. 

But that’s central Government’s job, he says. 

The Ruapehu District Council does help with the Mayor’s Taskforce for Jobs in getting young people into work. It also encourages new industry into the area when it can, like the growing pet food factory on the edge of Taumarunui. 

Running the district is hard enough. The council has been going through all its services, asking ratepayers what matters to them and where it could cut, such as “does Taumarunui really need one hall, or two?”, Kirton says. 

If the council stripped back to core services, rates would fall to 2.7%, he says. 

“But we can’t match the affordability with the expectation of central Government. 

“When you add back in everything that the Government’s told us we need to do, it [the rates] gets up to plus 10%.” 

In August, Local Government Minister Simon Watts announced plans to cap council rate rises at 4% a year. 

The district can’t seem to catch a break either. 

The Chateau Tongariro remains closed, meaning fewer bed nights and people spending time in the region. 

There have been some poor snow years on the commercial ski fields, and Covid hammered tourism. 

And then industry like Karioi and Tangiwai mills exits the room. 

Housing is squeezed. Ōhakune is a ski town, and holiday homes keep prices up there. The pressure spills down the road to Raetihi. 

Between 30% and 40% of the district’s homes are owned by out-of-district ratepayers, Kirton says. 

At the 2023 Census, nearly a quarter of Raetihi’s homes sat unoccupied, a figure that includes holiday homes and is more than double the national rate. 

“You get outside investors coming in, and they grab those cheap houses in front of those who are wanting a first home.” 

The Census put the town’s median rent at $250 a week, but people the Herald spoke to quoted more than $400. 

If it weren’t for the higher meat and wool prices being earned from farming, and the farmers paying rates, the area would be in dire straits, Kirton says. 

“If you’ve got an old car and it’s bloody breaking down every five minutes, there’s been more money on the bloody repairing ... you just put it down a big hole,” he says. 

“If you were to get a decent car, functional car, then the maintenance of that is actually far less.” 

Asked what the area needs from any incoming Government in November’s election, Kirton says “a bit of capital injection”. 

If they can fix the car, then the district can get on with the journey, he reckons. 

So what’s in it for politicians to help this way? That’s part of the problem, Kirton admits. 

“There’s not as many votes here as ... in Auckland. They can spend two days in Auckland and get 10 times the votes than they would if they come here.” 

On Raetihi’s main street, wrapped in white plastic, is the Waimarino Health Centre, a Health New Zealand Te Whatu Ora facility getting a $4.4m upgrade. 

When work finishes in the second half of 2027, the GP clinic, district nurses and mental health team will work together under one roof. 

Disconnected services have been one of locals’ biggest frustrations, Whanganui Regional Health Network (WRHN) chief executive Judith Macdonald says. 

The network owns Ruapehu Health, the town’s general practice, which will run from the new building. 

“We would really like to say that people get a seamless service and that it’s more connected.” 

For now, there is no permanent doctor in Raetihi. Nurse practitioners and nurses work alongside rostered locums and online doctors. 

WRHN is advertising for a permanent doctor, but Macdonald doesn’t expect to find one who will live in Raetihi. 

“The reality is in remote rural communities, the days of old are gone now. We’re never going to be in a position to probably sustain someone permanently up there.” 

The current clinic is also shut at weekends. 

The Herald was told that if you get hurt at the weekend, call an ambulance – you’ll get a bed far sooner than if you make the 90-minute drive to Whanganui Hospital yourself. 

Macdonald says such advice is unnecessary because there is an on-call service and online doctors can assess patients. 

The upgrade won’t deliver everything locals wanted. The original concept envisaged an integrated wellness centre that went beyond treatment to having programmes for wider community wellbeing. 

“The dollars didn’t quite go as far as we would have liked,” Macdonald says. 

Turuhia Edmonds lost a near-$120,000 job when the Karioi pulp mill closed, putting his plans to buy a house on hold. 

For Edmonds, health services hassles are a bugbear. Waiting three weeks for a GP appointment and the delays in receiving a script are painful. 

Like Kirton, he wants the basics working. 

“I don’t want too many new things because I’d rather have what we have sort of fixed up and made fit for purpose again, and, you know, working properly.” 

Edmonds wants investment that’s worthwhile, “not like a token bunch of money that’s been chucked at us”. 

But he suspects Raetihi gets put in “the too hard basket”. 

The best outcome for Raetihi and the district – “it all comes down to people having jobs”, he says. 

At Te Korowai o Wainuiārua, where the chainsaws sit ready for the next class of keen learners, they are over empty promises. 

Gilbert has learned to read every word the Crown puts in front of him. 

“‘We may consider it’, ‘we will consider it’, it’s a totally different meaning,” he says. 

“‘You will do it’, and that’s how you hold your honour.” 

Rameka wants the country to see the people of the region and not just the poverty. 

“We’re a proud people, we’re a beautiful people with a deep whakapapa knowledge ... the economic hardship doesn’t define who we are. 

“Hope is a whānau member getting reliable work, bringing more money home. Hope is the ability to go out and buy food, enough food to put on the table. Hope is a roof that doesn’t leak. 

“And a power bill that’s not going to run you dry.” 

Mike Scott is a senior journalist at the Herald. His work spans writing, photography and video and he has won numerous journalism awards, including Videographer of the Year and Best Documentary. He has worked in media for more than 25 years, producing stories across New Zealand and internationally.