Theresa Lonergan
The Upper House committee examining the long-term sustainability and future of the timber and forest products industry held a hearing in Tumut yesterday. The hearing at the Tumut Golf Club saw logging contractors, councils and local mill businesses address the committee. Source: Timberbiz
Tumbarumba’s Theresa Lonergan, a member of the Australian Forest Contractors Association, was expected to tell the committee about the plight of logging contractors, who have been the hardest hit in the industry as work dries up as a result of the “supply cliff” in the wake of the Black Summer fires.
Council representatives from Snowy Valleys, Greater Hume and Cootamundra-Gundagai also had their say.
Timber industry advocate, Softwoods Working Group, were represented by Chair Peter Crowe and economist Diana Gibbs.
They argued that a major land acquisition and plantation establishment program must occur by the government, as has happened in the past, to overcome the wood supply crisis currently existing in Australia.
On the flip side, Adjungbilly landowner Michael Kingwill was the final person to address the committee, and arguing that, before any more land is given over to pine plantations, the issues of water interception, weed eradication and bushfire mitigation must be properly addressed.
The committee was planning to use the visits to meet with local stakeholders and explore the inquiry’s various issues first-hand.
Committee Chair, Mark Banasiak MLC said the committee recognises that there are a range of factors placing significant pressure on the timber and forest products industry, including the impacts of the 2019-20 bushfires as well as the ongoing pandemic.
“We have gathered evidence on the issues from the many submissions received and the Sydney based hearings held to date. We are now looking to go out into the regions to meet and listen to the people who work with timber and forest products everyday,” Mr Banasiak said.
Mr Banasiak shared the committee’s intention to visit other areas.
“We are planning further regional visits, including to the south and north coast of New South Wales, where we also hope to hold hearings, to gain a greater understanding of the industry first hand and to facilitate input from those who know the issues well.
“I encourage people to continue to engage in this important inquiry,” Mr Banasiak said.
The committee comprises local MLC Mick Veitch, Wagga Based National Wes Fang, as well as Just Field, Taylor Martin, Peter Poulos and Peter Primrose.
Mr Kingwill has previously provided a written submission to the inquiry. He has a unique perspective, as a landowner whose Adjungbilly property 60km north east of Tumut is bordered by large pine plantations, but also as someone who started his working life in 1981 as a saw doctor, and who has since worked in the softwood and hardwood industries, as a saw doctor and hardwood sawmill owner-operator.
Pine forests have gradually surrounded his property over recent decades – whereas once they were 20km from the property, plantations now border three of his boundaries.
His family farm is bordered by Redhill station in the south, bought by the Forestry Commission in 1984.
On the eastern boundary, Black Andrew station was purchased by a managed investment scheme in 1994, and is now owned by state forests after the MIS scheme debacle.
On the north, Nanangroe station was bought by the NSW Government and was planted for pine in 1997.
In all, 38kms of his property shares a common boundary with the Forest Corporation.
He said the biggest problem he has with the plantations was weeds – “which we are required to eradicate but they (Forests Corporation) do not even effectively manage”.
He said he spends more than $50,000 a year, mainly on blackberry control, as birds, kangaroos and foxes spread the seed from plantation land onto his property.
“Pre-plantations, weed eradication took one to two weeks per year,” he said.
“It is now a four-five month concerted effort and we never complete the job.”
He noted that under the Afforestation Plantation Act of 1988, both stated and forest growers do not have to control weeds on their land – they only have to spray six metres around the boundary.
But under the Local Government Act, landholders have to suppress blackberry and other noxious weeds on their land.
“Plantation managers claim they cannot afford to control blackberry and other weeds in their plantations,” Mr Kingwill said.
“This lack of weed control contributed greatly to the bushfire devastation caused in the plantations, such as the Dunns Rd Fire, making it impossible to control a fire.”
Mr Kingwill argued that when plantation owners bought the properties, they had little, if any, blackberry growing on them. Now, there is an understorey of the weeds. Areas within the ownership of Forests Corp, such as gullies and waterways, are choked with blackberry bushes up to two metres high, he said.
He also raised the issue of water used by plantations.
Mr Kingwill said local creeks in his area had dried up when plantations were established.
“Pine uses 36 inches (900mm of rain a year,” he said. “If that rainfall is not realised, there is no run-off into the waterways. This is called plantation interception.
And, echoing a theme raised by landowners in the Lower Bago and around Tumbarumba in recent months, Mr Kingwill questioned the economic viability of pine plantations in the wake of booming land prices and record prices for cattle and sheep.
Rural land price rises in the Snowy Valleys Local Government Area topped the state in the past year according to official figures released by the NSW Valuer General.
Prices rose 93.2 per cent, or a combined total of more than one billion dollars, beating out other areas such as Berrigan (82.3 per cent, Byron (70.5 per cent), Lockhart (64.4 per cent) and Murrumbidgee (56.7 per cent).
“Anecdotally, I am told that Forest Corp receive $4.50 a tone for their pulp log,” he said. “This is unviable and subsidised by the taxpayer.
“Farming/grazing is by far a more viable land use in terms of return on capital and job creation.
“Farmland should not be put into plantation forestry.”
There are about 125,000 hectares of land dedicated to plantations in the region.
Industry advocate, the Softwoods Working Group, pointed out that even before the fires, the industry had a shortfall of trees to work with and was lobbying for an expansion of the plantation estate.
Processors such as AKD, Visy and Hyne require the supply of about three million tonnes of wood each year to operate at pre-fire capacity.
However, the plantations of the region have only be able to supply about two million tonnes, meaning logs have traditionally been transported from North East Victoria, the Central West and Bombala to make up the shortfall.
The problem has been exacerbated by the Dunns Road Fire, SWG chair Peter Crowe said, leading to considerable reductions in wood quotas being supplied to the mills.
“This ultimately means that our region that was already operating under a local wood-supply deficit before the fires, has had that situation significantly exacerbated,” Mr Crowe said.
“This will have implications at a local, state and national level for sawn timber supplies to service the building industry. It will also potentially increase demand for imported timber.
Mr Crowe said plantation expansion is the only effective, long term option for resolving the existing supply problem.
He said it would take 30 years for wood supply to return to pre-fire levels, with saw-log grade timber particularly restricted until that time.
He called for the state government to take steps to adopt policies that will mitigate the barriers to private investment in pine plantations, and for the government to also invest directly.
He wants the government to undertake major land purchases in suitable areas and in a gradual manner, over the next decade, to be used for investment in plantations.
“This expenditure should be considered as an investment in regional infrastructure and would be an appreciating asset on the State’s balance sheet,” Mr Crowe said.
“The mechanisms for establishing new plantations on this land could be a mix of public and private options involving a combination of partnership and leasing arrangements with appropriate operators.
Prior to the fires, SWG had argued the region needs between 40,000 and 50,000 hectares of new plantation to be established in the next 10 years to meet forecast demand. That would mean planting up to 40 million new trees – not counting those replacing those lost.
“Intervention by the Government can be justified because of the market failure existing in the situation where no single processor could derive sole benefit from investment in resource production, that is plantation establishment, as multiple products (sawlogs and pulp) are sold to different processors,” Mr Crowe said.
