An emergency summit at South Australian Parliament has been told Australia’s timber shortage is not just hurting builders but is having a “big domino effect” on trades dependent on the construction industry. Source: Timberbiz, ABC
The summit on Wednesday organised by SA Best on Wednesday was attended by key housing industry stakeholders in an attempt to develop a blueprint to avoid the timber shortage crisis from worsening.
Those invited to attend the summit included key industry associations such as the Master Builders Association of SA, the Housing Industry Association, the Plumbers Association of SA and National Electrical Contractors Association, some of the state’s leading timber producers and suppliers, and SA’s largest homebuilders.
GCJ Constructions project manager Nathan Shanks was reported by the ABC as saying said some of his projects were experiencing “massive handbrakes” due to the timber shortage.
“We have a $5 million project going in the Barossa which has had a handbrake on it for the past four months minimum — and with that problem comes a lot of cost that we end up bleeding,” he said.
“If there is opportunity to source material from somewhere like Kangaroo Island, then I think that’s definitely worth looking into, because I think we’re only just going to get more pain as it goes on.”
Kangaroo Island Plantation Timbers has enough timber salvaged from last year’s bushfires to build 10,000 homes.
The salvaged timber has been tested and declared suitable for housing and the mill and Kangaroo Island Plantation Timbers have even agreed on a price.
But it’s the cost of carting the logs that is preventing builders accessing reportedly enough wood for 10,000 homes.
In May last year Assistant Forestry and Fisheries Minister Senator Jonathon Duniam announced the Federal Government was supporting the forestry industry with $15 million for salvage log transport that, as he said at the time, was “critical to assisting the sector to get back on its feet following the devastating bushfires”.
But, for some reason, the package only applied to New South Wales and Victoria.
Primary Industries Minister David Basham has approached the Federal Government for assistance under the program.
“We’ll continue to have discussions to see what we can do to resolve the KI timber issues,” Mr Basham said.
SA Best MLC Frank Pangallo said he had organised the summit because his office had been contacted by builders and tradies who were concerned about how the shortage would impact on the industry long term.
“Unless both state and federal governments address the issue and ensure that there’s an adequate supply of saw log that work will dry up,” Mr Pangallo said.
“Coupled with the overwhelming success of the HomeBuilder program, along with impending price rises, this is probably going to have unintended consequences … things could be grinding to a halt or drying up for those who can’t get adequate supply.
“We need to ensure that the state government in conjunction with the federal government acts on this pretty quickly so we’re looking at saying to the state government, ‘You really need to get your skates on here before we hit a valley of death’.”
