TROUBLE AT THE OLD MILL TOWN

‘What I think this town needs,’ says one child, ‘is a KFC and a Gucci store.’ But it’s not the multinationals that will nurture the drug-addled, crime-riddled community of Kawerau – the community is regrowing itself from flaxroots up. Matt Shand reports.

STOMPING out of Kawerau’s bottle shop at 9.15am on aMonday morning, an 18-pack of Cody’s 8 per cent under one arm, a heavy-set man chuckles and cracks a can before opening the car door and offering one to the passenger.

‘‘You get to know the people who come in early,’’ the manager says. ‘‘Sometimes there’s a line outside.’’

Across the way the Cayman Sports Club is pulling ‘‘breakfast handles’’ to the clack of pokie machines and racing commentary. No food is on display. A sign advertises $5 toasties.

Despite the hour, the dimly-lit gaming lounge features 18 punters playing the 18 pokie machines. No one speaks as they contribute their share of the $2.4 million take the town of just 7000 contributes in pokie proceeds. That’s $342 per resident, on average.

‘‘We have strict rules on who can be here,’’ the owner says. ‘‘When enough is enough, and our trust gives everything back to the community. We bought a new ambulance for the town which is going very well.’’ The ambulance cost about $170,000. Dilapidated houses, most built in the 1980s when Kawerau was a thriving mill town, sit in clusters along some town streets. They show how time can be cruel. The paper mill used to employ large numbers with policies in place encouraging employees live locally but those days are long gone.

Amid all this, hope remains and a plan to save the town is about to bear fruit. Hope is most easily seen in the eyes of children smiling and chatting as they walk past the addiction-gripped hotspots towards an addiction-free haven, Tarawera School.

Stop and ask one of the students, they will tell you they love this town and want to stay to help it grow. ‘‘You don’t see all the good things that happen here,’’ one said. ‘‘I love this town. When a little girl went missing on her way home from school we all went out and searched for her. We just did it. We all banded together.’’

They say Kawerau has had a bad reputation and people are quick to judge on first impressions. Wisdom rings from the words. Pick any town or city in New Zealand. There are 9am booze-buyers, pokie clubs running hot and run-down houses and beneficiaries and drug pushers and gangs and drug use.

The problem in Kawerau is with only 7000 residents, these problems are magnified. But the school, police, and council have formed a plan to save their community.

Only 53.2 per cent of the labour force is employed. Though that has risen from 31.7 per cent in 2014, the town is in a hangover from when the paper mill stopped employing as many people. In the 1980s it needed 2000 people, but a downturn in the timber industry saw many of these jobs disappear and, in 2012, another 100 jobs were cut.

And a diminished mill caused a domino effect in the town: the lack of jobs led to unemployment, unemployment led to poverty, poverty led to gangs, gangs led to crime, crime led to drugs, and drugs led to addiction.

Police have now targeted the pushers and organised criminals in a blitz operation known as Notus, which resulted in more than $3.5 million of assets seized and 57 arrests, including 11 patched Mongrel Mob members.

The operation also gave police the names and details of 450 drug users, but instead of staking out these individuals, officers took the alternative approach of finding them access to rehab.

‘‘We are not going to be able to arrest our way out of addiction,’’ Sergeant Al Fenwick says. ‘‘We treat addiction as a health issue.’’

With gang leaders locked up in court proceedings, police then took advantage of quieter streets. ‘‘With the drugs drying up, we are getting more and more self-referred addicts looking to seek help.’’

Now that the addiction issue was being tackled, the community started to focus on employment.

Kawerau mayor Malcolm Campbell, councillors and industry groups stopped pushing people into work and, instead, started bringing work to town. Kawerau’s access to a rail link and geothermal power certainly help and new economic report predicts there will be 1460 jobs created in Kawerau in the next 12 years.

The biggest announcement is the $180 million wood fibre processing mill operated by juggernaut Guangxi Fenglin which is expected to generate 100 direct jobs from 2020. An inland container port will follow, leading to at least 25 direct jobs.

Finally a geothermally powered milk processing plant will employ between 23-37 people initially with hopes for more on the horizon. All the projects are set to be operational in the next five years.

‘‘We’ve focused on creating jobs for the region,’’ Campbell says. ‘‘If the jobs are here people will come and the town will flourish.’’

Indirect jobs, from workplaces supporting the new influx, will be of great benefit for the likes of long-time resident Vicky Ayres, who is taking courses to be an early childhood educator.

‘‘I love Kawerau,’’ she says. ‘‘It is such a nice place to live. People say things about it but I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else.’’

Ayres hopes to purchase her rental home off the landlord. ‘‘I think this place is really changing. I’m excited for the changes the town is part of.’’

Former Mongrel Mob member turned councillor Warwick Godfrey is awalking example of how things can change and says employment