{"id":438434,"date":"2026-05-21T14:06:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T14:06:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/438434\/"},"modified":"2026-05-21T14:06:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T14:06:10","slug":"chewing-it-over-auckland-mayor-wayne-brown-mulls-buying-at-risk-kaitaia-mills-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/438434\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Chewing it over\u2019: Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown mulls buying at-risk Kait\u0101ia mills"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cI\u2019m chewing it over, would be the best I can say at the moment. Chewing it over.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, he said it was too early to divulge more, including who he was working with.<\/p>\n

\"Kait\u0101ia'sKait\u0101ia’s Triboard mill is up for sale. Photo \/ Liz Garton, RNZ<\/p>\n

Brown has previously developed a number of large commercial properties in the North Park area, next to the mills, and is a landlord to private businesses and government agencies.<\/p>\n

He has also developed properties in Mang\u014dnui and Kerikeri, also in the Far North.<\/p>\n

During his time as Far North Mayor, he revived and pushed through a stalled project to build the Te Ahu Centre, which included a library, community hall, cinema, museum and council service centre at the southern end of Kait\u0101ia.<\/p>\n

Northland MP Grant McCallum earlier told RNZ he had met a consortium of local and national investors keen to keep the mills operating, but could not say who was involved.<\/p>\n

When announcing its plan to exit Kait\u0101ia earlier this year<\/a>, Juken New Zealand said the mills had been affected by declining export markets and high costs, especially electricity.<\/p>\n

The mills are also major water users, consuming about a third of Kait\u0101ia\u2019s town supply.<\/p>\n

Juken is planning to keep its Masterton mill, which is newer and makes similar products.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, Workers First Union organiser Marcus Coverdale warned closure of the mills would have a \u201cdevastating effect\u201d on the town<\/a> \u2013 not just on the 200 workers and their families, but also on a construction firm that used Triboard to build prefabricated homes, trucking firms, supermarkets, and every other business that relied on workers spending their wages in town.<\/p>\n

The union has called a public meeting at Te Ahu from 4.30pm on Saturday.<\/p>\n

\u2013 RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cI\u2019m chewing it over, would be the best I can say at the moment. Chewing it over.\u201d However,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":438435,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[224143,51,6256,138,5098,224142,60157,702,18839,10934,35020,34589,111,139,69,1523,5413,3542],"class_list":["post-438434","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-atrisk","tag-auckland","tag-brown","tag-business","tag-buying","tag-chewing","tag-graaf","tag-it","tag-kaitia","tag-mayor","tag-mills","tag-mulls","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-over","tag-peter","tag-wayne"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438434","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=438434"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438434\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/438435"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=438434"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=438434"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=438434"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}