1876: Mataura Paper Mill

February 1, 2025

By AHNZ

Mataura Paper Mill (1876-2000) made headlines a few years ago. The aluminium smelter at Tiwai Point has toxic waste to dispose of and contracted it out on one occasion to Taha Asia Pacific. This firm decided to stockpile much of their metal dross (ouvea premix) at the old mill near people and the mighty Mataura River. Later, they were to recycle it into a new product (eg fertilizer) but never did.

The company failed and was found guilty of doing all of this without permission. The Smelter had to come at great expense to Mataura to reclaim the aluminium waste and take it all the way back to Tiwai Point again. If you want a job done right, do it yourself. They probably have gone back to shipping the metal dross off to be buried under some 3rd world village in Australia for all we know or care. It’s gone!

“Taha Asia Pacific had a contract with NZAS at Tiwai Point, near Bluff, to turn its dross, a by-product of the smelting process, into ouvea premix. It had plans to build a plant to turn the premix into fertiliser and sell it.” – Stuff (2020)

“The waste came to be in Mataura after New Zealand Aluminium Smelters contracted Taha Asia Pacific to deal with the waste products of Tiwai Point’s aluminium production. Taha moved more than 10,000 tonnes of ouvea premix and other dross into the papermill without resource consent six years ago.” – RNZ (2020)

“…Rio Tinto, the majority owner of Tiwai, had accepted financial responsibility and expedited removal of the substance from storage sites. The project cost $6 million, with Rio Tinto picking up the whole bill. The last bag was removed last Wednesday. They are being stored in watertight shipping containers at the Tiwai Point smelter.” – The Southland App (2021)

“Mataura was recently in the news as the toxic dump site of aluminium smelter bi-product. But this was still about 100 years in the future when the Hussars were out on manoeuvres back in their day.” – 1880: Defeat of the Southland Hussars, AHNZ

“..a couple of years ago the whole town was evacuated due to flooding and fears the dross stored in the old mill would release chlorine gas once it came into contact with the flood water…it all came to nothing… except my elderly neighbours who were handcuffed by force and arrested because they refused to leave their chickens behind unattended…

“As for the medicinal weed factory they had results which exceeded expectations…they lease a large block of land on the back road to Clinton and the long daylight hours during the summer work in their favour…Though word in town is that govt redtape has caused issues and whether it is still actually operating is unclear…And as for the dross there are plenty more dump sites scattered around the district that remain untouched and conveniently forgotten..” – Mat Panzram to AHNZ (2025)

“A year ago, we celebrated the return to site of all of the 24,800 tonnes of Ouvea stored in buildings around Southland. About 800 containers were stored at numerous spots around site at the peak, while plans to export the material for reuse in the concrete industry were arranged. ‌‌Now, I’m delighted to share that, a whole year ahead of the schedule, the final container of Ouvea Premix left site earlier this month and left the country this week.‌” – The Weekly Update (15 December, 2023,) New Zealand Aluminium Smelters Limited

Taha Asia Pacific is gone but its parent company, Taha International, seemed to want to go ahead with the dross recycling. According to them, the Smelter pulled the rug out from under their contract before they could get beyond the storage stage. Then the government changed to Labour 6.0 and  Gore District Council responded to the mob call to simply make the raw product go away by any means necessary. Coalition partner to that Government, NZ First MP Mark Patterson, has launched a petition to urge the Government to take “any means necessary.” Environment Minister David Parker said “neither he nor the Ministry had the technical expertise to judge the proposed solution.” Ref. Stuff (2020)

Right up to the end The Man from Taha, Frank Pollmann, was still promoting the use of the slag as an economic resource for New Zealand. Pollmann was offering his proprietary technology to New Zealand Steel so the slag could be used as an input to their steelmaking process. But it was too late. Nobody wanted to evaluate a proposition that could both save the day and make money for New Zealand. The story about Bad Capitalists Offshore and Toxic Garbage was strong. Because of The State we forego even considering economic opportunities like this. Politicians like the then Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and  Mark Patterson follow the popular mood of the herd and set policy with re-election in mind. Pollmann wasn’t. He was trying to solve a waste problem and create wealth for us.

Doesn’t this go to show, once again, that decisions about production and property are best left to the free market and not to The State?

Pain that is not Transformed is Transmitted

Mataura had lost its paper mill in 2000. “Stiff international competition has forced the closure of Carter Holt Harvey’s century-old Mataura paper mill in Southland, and left 155 workers out of a job.” Ref. NZ Herald (2000)

My theory is that Mataura, by the 2010s, had suffered from this traumatic blow. Instead of transforming this punch into a new outlook they drew inward. Got spooked. A confident New Zealander accepts a Dominance Hierarchy based on excellence and ability. We embrace opportunity and take managed risks. We support and encourage great men and bold ideas. On the other hand, a traumatised society flips into a Reverse Dominance Hierarchy which tears down, fearfully, great men and bold ideas. We’ve switched into our reptilian brains and want to suck our thumbs. If any among us suggest doing anything exciting we will tear them down and perhaps kill them. We have an indigenous name for this: Tall Poppy Syndrome.

This is what it is like for an individual, or a culture, to be in Survival Mode. We would sooner be poor, slipping ever closer toward a 3rd World economy, than grow our productivity if that means feeling unsafe. Safety Needs are at the base of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.

In the 2010s Mataura, like New Zealand at large, switched into that Tall Poppy/Reverse Dominance Hierarchy mode. It led to the Millennial “Me Too” Victimhood Culture era (2016-2020) and the election of Ardern’s Labour 6.0 Ministry. That, of course, led the country directly into the most ritualistically submissive and traumatic obedience seen since wartime: The COVID-19 Panic.

So, Mataura and the history story of its mill are part of a larger drama playing out countrywide.

Today that mill is now the site of Southern Medicinal who are developing a very large cannabis enterprise. (I got on to this by wondering if they were the ones who crashed the Christchurch Medical Kiwi liquidation sales this week, buying everything out from under the bidders during active auctions.) Ref. Outrage as medicinal cannabis auction pulled early and bidders shut out, Press (30 January, 2025)

We’ll see how this cannabis caper works out.

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Image ref. Whites Aviation in July 1949, Mataura Museum, Facebook (2017)

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