Failure to meet target for timber
Australia has a timber shortage and the federal government isn’t doing enough to address it, says
IF YOU are in the construction industry, building a home or undertaking a DIY project you probably already know there’s a severe timber shortage.
The significant lack of timber is now being felt right across Australia. Some home construction delays are up to about 18 months and this is impacting on jobs and of course those Australians who are having to juggle their lives while home construction and DIY projects stop and start.
You may not know that timber is already being imported from overseas to frame up a fifth of our homes today.
The biggest question is how can we prevent this timber shortage from becoming an entrenched problem where we no longer have the sovereign capacity to provide Australian softwood to build Australian homes now and into the future?
Real action is needed now and that’s where those who have the reform levers must act urgently to ensure this timber shortage does not hold back our construction industry, that we don’t lose any jobs and that we are well prepared to have adequate supplies of Australian timber over the coming decades.
So who is it that actually holds those reform levers? Well, you only have to look at the Morrison-Joyce government and what it promised.
In 2018 the government promised to expand Australia’s timber plantations by one billion trees. Three years on this promise has been exposed as a sham with new evidence revealing not one dollar of funding has been delivered to help meet the one billion trees.
Answers to questions in the Senate revealed the concessional loan program set-up to help meet the target is yet to even open after the government promised $500m before the last election.
The minister responsible has said the government was a ‘long way off’ meeting the goal but offered nothing to explain the policy failure.
According to the Department of Agriculture,
Water and the Environment (DAWE) ‘numerous studies’ show the need for 400,000ha of new plantations that will be required over the next decade to meet Australia’s demand for wood. These, according to DAWE, are the necessary hectares of plantation needed to meet the government’s one billion trees.
To understand how far away the government is from its own goal, have a look at
data from the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences that reveals there has only been 2750ha of new softwood planted. It’s certainly an indication that it is way off the one billion trees it promised and it’s evident this goal has not been a priority of the government.
With the minister freely admitting the goal the government set is a long way off, you have to wonder why it has let this important policy measure slip into the ether and why it has not acted quicker to ensure Australia has the capacity to grow its own plantation timber. The lack of care and attention around this so called goal can only be described as a monumental failure.
The government has talked a big game on housing construction but its failures on timber shortages show it doesn’t care enough.
If it did the necessary work the government could have ensured there was an opportunity for Australia to have sovereign capability when it comes to our future timber supplies and to grow jobs across the forestry sector.
It is time for the government to start delivering on its promises or timber shortages will only grow more dire in the decades to come.