End looks near for Longwarry mill

Longwarry’s remaining sawmill could close at the end of June.

Owner of Longwarry Sawmilling for the past 12 years Bruce Craig said the State Government’s decision to bring forward the closure of native timber harvesting to the end of this year would shut the gates at the mill that processes solely hardwood timber.

There is a sad irony to the fact that a country town founded on the timber industry almost 150 years ago will no longer have a sawmill.

Mr Craig feels for his 15 workers from the district, some of them casuals, who have only a few more pay packets to look forward to.

“They’ve only ever known the timber industry.

“It is the best industry to work in and with the best people to work with”, he said, as he cast an eye over the extensive factory on Longwarry’s eastern entrance, one of the more recent building additions still to be completed.

Mr Craig said he sees little option but to close.

Legal action by conservation groups and court decisions that have halted logging in the state’s forests, as well as the government’s earlier plan to phase out native timber harvesting in 2030, had already seriously impacted the business.

We’ve been getting only about one truck load a month of Victorian timber which takes only four to five hours to mill, Mr Craig said.

“The rest we have imported from New South Wales”.

That has not been profitable because of the expense of transporting it to Longwarry but have done it to keep the workers in a job, Mr Craig said.

The Longwarry mill supplies hardwood timber to mainly fencing contractors, builders and hardware stores, especially in Melbourne and New South Wales.

Longwarry sawmill workers are still hard at the job but their futures are clouded by the State Government’s decision to ban native timber harvesting at the end of the year and the mill heading for possible closure at the end of June.