'No future here for them': Cafe owner despairs for Kaitāia's young people

Many people in Kaitaia can barely afford food and the probable closure of the Triboard Mill is set to worsen the town's plight, business owner Maryjane Manukau says.

Efforts to save almost 160 jobs at the town's only remaining timber mill appear to have failed.

The Far North town's Triboard Mill, which is owned by Japanese forestry company Juken New Zealand, has been on the market since March.

The news comes just a week after new labour force data showed Northland's unemployment rate was the highest in the country at 8.3 percent.

The unemployment rate among 15 to 24-year-olds is 25 percent.

Maryjane Manukau and her husband own MJ'z Seafood & Whānau Kai in Kaitaia.

Their business is on the main street and the owners are well known for their kindness along with their hangi, seafood chowder, paua pies, and mussel burgers.

She told Morning Report when she returned to Kaitaia recently from Auckland she was dismayed to see how much poverty had spread in the community.

The town had been struggling for a while with a lot of unemployment and people finding it hard to pay for basics like food.

She was seeing people looking through rubbish bins or begging and that "was massive for me".

"I see more and more young people walking the streets these days. A lot aren't going to school.

"The future here in Kaitaia for our young people is not very good ...There is no future here for them."

Manukau said 15-year-olds were asking her for jobs and she tells them they should be at school.

She said while she couldn't provide them with jobs, she would bring them in and teach them basic skills such as using a coffee machine and "used to being around people".

She was seeing more people unable to afford to come in for a cup of coffee or other customers might spend several hours in her cafe and spend as little as $5.

"I end up having my building quite full because I allow them to sit here forever and a day.

"I do what I do. A lot of elderly come in and it's a catchup time for them and I'll do something on the sidelines, take them out a plate of scones no charge, just feed them up."

Some people also weren't on mains water which meant buying it at a cost of $700 for half a tank.

"That's a big cost and we're not even in summer yet."

As for the mill, Juken NZ executive director Yasufumi Tsuchiya said negotiations to sell the land, buildings and machinery were continuing with a potential buyer, who could restart the mill in future with a new workforce.

If the sale fell through the mill would be closed down and efforts to sell the land and assets would continue.

Either way, the company would stop operating the mill by March next year at the latest.

Northland MP Grant McCallum told Midday Report he was still hopeful a buyer would be found for the land and buildings, who would then restart the mill.

Permanent closure would be "a disaster" for the town, he said.

McCallum said he was still working with potential buyers and colleagues in government to help pull a deal together.