Energy And Shipping Decisions Needed Before Meatworks – Chatham Islands Mayor

Russell
Palmer, Political Reporter

The Chatham
Islands are welcoming attention from the government, but say
energy and shipping decisions are needed before a meatworks
supported by the government can proceed.

Those
concerns will pose a challenge to the relatively rapid
timeframe Regional Development Minister Shane Jones has set
for funding decisions.

Jones took a delegation of more
than 70 people to New Zealand’s most isolated community on
Wednesday, making use of the Defence Force’s new C-130J
Hercules delivered in September. The aim was to encourage
bids for the remaining cash in his $1.2 billion Regional
Investment Fund, of which about $580 million had already
been spent.

“This particular summit is an attempt to
plug the gap of neglect. For a long period of time, the
leadership of the Chathams have felt neglected,” he
said.

Chatham Islands mayor Monique Croon’s speech
highlighted that for 600-700 people living on the islands,
infrastructure development was desperately needed.

“We
are not just remote, we are exposed to every pressure the
world is facing right now. Climate change is not abstract
for us, rising seas and storm surges threaten homes,
biodiversity and lifeline infrastructure. Global supply
chain disruptions hit harder here – everything arrives by
boat or plane. And as world powers compete and trade
relationships shift, the ripple effects are not theoretical:
they’re felt at our fuel pump, on our wharf, in our
homes.

“While central government talks
about getting back to basics, our message is simple:
here on the Chathams, we’re still fighting to get up to the
basics,” she said, and – emulating the government’s language
– “when we do, we intend to deliver those basics brilliantly
because that’s what it takes to unlock growth.”

She
later told reporters that along with critical concerns about
shipping and energy prices, the community also needed
improved housing, water and waste systems.

“We had an
application to council received … for 22 houses in
waiting, we had to say no, because we didn’t have enough
capacity in our water and wastewater system,” she
said.

“Water or waste, we’re struggling to deliver a
level of service to the island that … is acceptable, so we
have to really work together to improve those
services.”

Minister endorses mobile
meatworks

Jones was aiming to offload the rest of the
RIF’s funding ahead of the coming election – government
processes meaning it would need to be allocated before July
next year. He told locals he would “strongly urge you to
support” a council bid for a portable meatworks through the
fund.

“I know that there’s a lot of interest in it …
2026 is the year of the election, we need to move our
projects. In the event that you want to work with us, sooner
rather than later, please put in that application,” he
said.

The minister’s speeches often divert from his
notes, which in this case contained no mention of the
meatworks plan – and it was a surprise for Chatham Islands
mayor Monique Croon. She said a meatworks had been talked
about there for a long time, but the mobile approach was one
of two options being considered, the other being a permanent
plant that could also process fish.

“I think there is
some merit in that,” she told reporters, when asked what her
preferred option was. “The risk was, with a portable
abattoir, because of the harsh environment if you’re moving
it round it gets rusty and it could break down easily …
[but] setting up a permanent one would be more
expensive.

“There’s also the requirement for water and
disposal and waste. All those things would have to be
considered.”

‘Eight or nine’ options for ship
replacement

Croon said the Chathams’ biggest priority
– a more permanent supply shipping solution to replace the
MV Southern Tiare – would affect the calculation
too.

“Until the shipping solution is come up with and
what that looks like, that will determine the requirements
around an abattoir,” she said. “It will be important … if
the ship’s not big enough – that there’s an opportunity to
process here.”

The 39-year-old supply ship is critical
for transporting fuel, livestock and seafood around the
islands, but has become increasingly unreliable. It
was the ship’s ongoing maintenance that meant about 5700
sheep and cattle killed on the islands last year went
unused.

The previous government in 2022 allocated
$35.1m to both keep the ship running and build a new ship,
but the cost of repairs rose from $6m to $10m and the
coalition chose not to proceed with the new ship build –
instead seeking
a solution from the private sector.

The government
last month confirmed
an open tender process, and Croon said many parties had
registered their interest in providing a
service.

Jones said the government wanted the shipping
problem “solved ASAP”, but had been advised the area near
the wharf at the island’s township of Waitangi may need
dredging.

There were eight or nine options for a
replacement, he said, and while he could not yet reveal cost
estimates he played down concerns about that.

“It
won’t be, in my view, terribly expensive to do a bit of
dredging at the wharf, weather dependent,” he
said.

“We need to solve the ongoing drama of a vessel.
But more importantly there were over 5000 animals culled
here last year because there was no way of getting them off
the island and there was no way to process them and turn
them into pet food.

“I hope to address that problem,
find the money and establish in partnership with the
Chathams an abattoir so we don’t see 5000 animals go to
waste, rotting in the paddock.”

The price of
power

Croon said power was also a concern for setting
up a meatworks.

The Chathams is set to see its
sky-high power prices – $1.29 per kWh, compared to the
35-cent average paid on the mainland – come down when three
new wind turbines and a battery system paid
for out of the 2023 Budget come into operation in June,
and the hope is that will be enough to allow a meatworks to
go ahead.

“Every time we’ve done a feasibility for an
abattoir in the past, ‘no, we can’t do it because the energy
[cost] is too high’. So hopefully that opens up the doors
for island businesses to operate, I mean, if you talk about
Hotel Chathams I think that they would get a bill of $22,000
a month for electricity, and that’s just
unaffordable.”

She said more renewable energy was
definitely on the wishlist when it came to infrastructure,
and one option would be rooftop solar that could feed into
the grid.

“Certainly we don’t want to be reliant on
diesel, renewable is the better option for the environment,
but also again affordability is key,” she said.

“If
you’re looking at an average cost of a system, it’s $50,000
probably per household. So what we would like to do is look
at the capital and what that cost would be … the challenge
here is, as you can see, we’re spread far out all over the
island.”

That wasn’t helped by the fact only half the
island’s houses were connected to the grid, she said, and
with the large distances involved, the cost of servicing the
lines could be high.

The two 225kw turbines built on
the islands in 2010 were dismantled after provider BlueNRGY
Group got into financial difficulties in 2014, four years
into the two-decade public-private
partnership.

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