Mata Season 2 | Mata Reports Episode 2: Toxic Legacy - A Fast Track to Failure?

As the country debates the merits of fast-track legislation, Mata Reports looks at an early example, one that took place in Kawerau under the 1954 Tasman Pulp and Paper Company Enabling Act.

The government of the time, committed to industrial development, led to the paper industry boom enabled by an abundant supply of raw material from maturing pine forests, planted decades earlier around the war.

But with the jobs and the profits came the issue of waste.  Tasman Pulp and Paper Mill owners were looking for somewhere to dump industrial waste and soon after they decided they had found the perfect place.

Te Kete Poutama, an area of land on the outskirts of Kawerau, to the eye it looked like it wasn’t being used - a convenient place to pipe sludge, other than the Tarawera River which had become known as the Black Drain. 

Despite the resistance from some Māori who believed the whenua and the nearby lake Rotoitipaku was significant and historic – the captains of industry had the law on their side.

“When [my parents] tried to argue with the people involved they said, ‘Well … there’s nothing you can do’,” says Tomairangi Fox, of Ngāti Tūwharetoa ki Kawerau. 

Back in 1954, Parliament had passed the Tasman Pulp and Paper Mill Enabling Act, which fast-tracked its construction and gave the company sweeping rights to use land and waterways.

Decades on the boom days are well and truly over, the unemployment rate is nearly three times the national average and in 2018 New Zealand Index of Multiple Deprivation in the Bay of Plenty found Kawerau as one of the most deprived communities.

And with the growth in automation and newsprint in decline, the jobs Kawerau families relied upon had all but disappeared.

The mill is gone, too, with paper production cut in 2021, leaving hundreds jobless. 

Meanwhile the original owners of the land used as a dumping ground have been left wondering whether their whenua can ever be restored – and who will pay.

The owner of the mill when it ceased operations, Norwegian-owned Norske Skog Tasman, has gone into liquidation.

The Bay of Plenty Regional Council has asked engineering experts to consider a “closure plan” for the dump site, and Norske Skog says money has been left aside to cover the proposed rehabilitation work.

But Fox and many others are concerned about the future of their whenua.

“Don’t put a sticking plaster on and walk away and think that’s the problem solved; it’s a bit more to it than that. I want my lake back.”

Colleen Skerrett-White, a trustee of Wai 21 Settlement Trust, cries when she thinks of what has become of the whenua. 

“I don’t want my grandchildren and great-grandchildren born into this rubbish,” she says. “They won’t have anything left.”

Environmental campaigner and former Green MP Catherine Delahunty says what happened around Kawerau, and its legacy, is something that should concern all New Zealanders.

“There’s a lot of bad stuff in this country around pollution and toxic sites,” she says.

“This was the most egregious and the most legally-enforced and most harmful thing that I think I’d ever seen.”

She points back to that 1954 law, and worries history could be repeated if the government’s Fast-Track Approvals Bill is passed.

Fast forward to 2024, and the proposed law seeks to streamline decision-making to facilitate infrastructure projects of regional and national significance. 

Kaumatua and kuia who remember the mill’s heyday and now bear witness to its toxic legacy believe the government should be cautious, and they worry there are significant risks with the fast-track legislation. 

“You could point back to the [mill] enabling act of 1954 and say, ‘Who made that decision and how could they have made that decision without consulting with Māori?’,” says former senior civil servant Leith Comer, chairman of Te Mana of Ngāti Rangitihi. 

“Those responsible for the fast-track legislation … have to be mindful of that. Unless they can give assurances – and that will be challenging – I think they’ll have difficulty convincing New Zealanders that this is good legislation.”

But that’s exactly what the Regional Development Minister Shane Jones is attempting to do.

He says New Zealanders should not be worried “the fast-track is somehow a massive journey back to … recreating our environment in the form of a lunar moonscape”.

“I don’t believe you can singularly use [Kawerau] as an example to undermine the usefulness of the fast-track. You’ve got to take these examples and learn from them,” says Jones.

“Who seriously believes that that singular, egregious case of environmental destruction is a template for how modern investors, modern firms and modern society imagines the future is going to be?”

Despite the assurances, back in Kawerau, people remain cautious, and committed to doing right by their descendants.

“We’re born with a responsibility to look after all of these taonga and hand them on to the next generation,” says Colleen Skerrett-White.