Charlotte Varcoe
A UNION leader has criticised a Federal Government funding announcement made last week regarding research into using low-value wood fibre to create new structural timber products.
Member for Barker Tony Pasin announced a $1.3m Agricultural Trade and Market Access Cooperation (ATMAC) Program grant for the Green Triangle region.
Mr Pasin said the funding would allow the timber industry to export processed wood products and focus on ensuring these products were up to world standards.
“This is about meeting international demand for Australian fibre but we don’t just want to be exporting logs, we also want Australian jobs and the way we produce those is that we value-add those Australian logs and export value-added products to the rest of the world,” Mr Pasin said.
However, Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining and Energy Union (CFMMEU) secretary Brad Coates labelled the funding a waste of money and said it did not address the current structural timber shortage across Australia.
“At the end of the day there is available technology all over the world that already provides what this funding is setting out to achieve,” Mr Coates said.
“It doesn’t do anything to address the current timber shortage problem and the bottom line is, whichever party gets into government, there needs to be movement on the increase in plantations.”
Mr Coates said the technology was already available overseas and even contributed to the building of the structural timber imported from Germany for the Wulanda Recreation Hub earlier this year.
“I am unsure why we would spend this money on a research project instead of helping the shortage,” he said.
“Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, we were importing 35 to 40 per cent of structural timber and the only reason there has been a shortage over the last two years is due to the supply chain.”
He said a solution to the issue should have been put in place a long time ago and that if trees were planted now, they would not be ready for another three decades.
“The solution should have been to put in place a long-term plan which addresses the problem as well as the decreasing number of trees,” Mr Coates said.
“The problem is only going to get worse regardless of what technology gets introduced.
“The Tarpeena Timberlink mill is building a cross-laminated timber facility so the technology is already here and to spend that money to study and research it makes me wonder whether it would be better spent researching other things.”
Mr Pasin said the Federal Government was doing all they could to meet the structural timber demands.
“Ultimately the decisions we make today may impact the industry in two or three years time and we are building to ensure that whenever we see these gluts – because from time to time we will see them – we will be able to ensure there is a market for engineered wood products elsewhere,” Mr Pasin said.
“Ultimately the goal is to see more trees in the ground and we do have a commitment for a billion trees in the ground by 2030 and it is about the right trees at the right scale in the right places and for the right purpose.”
