BUILDING SHORTAGES, BUT TIMBER IN STORAGE
LOCAL builders have shared their frustration at the state and federal governments, which they say are failing the industry by working against one another amid a national shortage of materials.
At a Master Builders Australia forum in Geelong on Thursday, chief executive officer Denita Wawn revealed 300,000 tonnes of structural timber remained on Kangaroo Island, despite the ongoing shortage that had prompted many builders to pull the pin and leave the industry.
She said the federal government had previously announced it would pay a subsidy to move the product but only if the state governments would match their offer.
“South Australia were the only one who matched it, so 300,000 tonnes
of structural timber is still there on Kangaroo Island. It is very frustrating,” she said.
“If they aren’t working in favour, then we are stuffed, which is where we are now.”
Signature Homes director Gary Watts said the industry was hurting.
He said he had spent an additional $35,000 on frames during the worst of the shortage, but said many builders were still accumulating additional costs.
“There was no timber so I had to use prefabricated material, I couldn’t get trusses so I had to get them from Warrnambool, which was almost $7000 in transport alone and then there was the increase in price,” he said.
“We decided to do it because we had to get some revenue, we have 13 people in the office and they need to be paid.”
He said he faced a similar problem with delays on a build at Thirteenth Beach.
“We had the walls finished on March 15,” he said.
“But we still don’t have trusses, so what that means is that we ordered them in November and laid a 30 per cent deposit in January, thinking we were going to get them in March. We are now in May.
“It’s a double-edge sword because you need to pay the deposit to get the materials and keep the cashflow going, but you then haven’t got the cashflow to be paying deposits.”
G.J. Gardner Homes managing director Rohan Smith said he was aware of local builders being forced to close their businesses as a result of the ongoing issues.
“No one wants builders to go broke because it puts more pressure on the industry,” he said.
“There are builders making life decisions at the moment, everybody is in a different space and there is a lot of pressure that you take home every day.”
Mr Smith said the recent change in Covid isolation rules had been the “first positive step towards rectifying the issue”.