That is according to Pulse Tasmania, which reports the rig is designed to replicate the planned venue’s fixed-roof structure and will assess whether a treated version of the stadium’s ETFE roof material can eliminate the shadow problem that has dogged the project since early 2025.

Shadows have plagued the design from the beginning.

Last year, Wood Central reported that Cricket Australia and Cricket Tasmania wrote to the Tasmanian government demanding architects redesign or remove the roof entirely, saying the fixed-dome design made the venue “unlikely to be conducive to hosting Test matches” — and potentially unworkable for one-day and T20 fixtures too.

At the time, Anne Beach, the CEO of the Macquarie Point Development Corporation, told a parliamentary inquiry that the transparent covering created contrast on clear days — and that the timber and steel beams, engineered as small as possible, would still cast shadows.

However, in November, a Gold Coast company identified a potential fix: Cricket Tasmania CEO Dom Baker proposed a matte treatment that, when applied to one side of the ETFE material, would disperse light rather than pass straight through —  killing the sharp contrasts on the pitch.

Until this week, it had never been physically tested. Now, the rig will run assessments on shadow intensity, ball visibility, and playing conditions. It will also capture data on how roof treatments affect turf growth beneath — a secondary concern for groundskeepers at an indoor venue.

It comes after both houses of the Tasmanian Parliament approved the $1.13 billion project in December — the Upper House voting 9–5 after two days of debate. The 23,000-seat venue will be the permanent home of the Tasmania Devils AFL team. Its fixed dome, framed in Tasmanian-sourced glulam, would be the largest timber roof on any stadium in the world.

What the roof actually looks like

Late last year, Wood Central reported that the current design documents detail a hybrid timber roof lined with Tasmanian-sourced glulam, paired with metal deck cladding, steel rod bracing, and translucent ETFE pillows. The clearspan structure carries an internal clearance of 49 metres — enough headroom for Test-level cricket as well as AFL, soccer, and rugby.

The Macquarie Point Summary Report specifies lightweight ETFE pillows, a 20-millimetre timber laminate, a secondary glulam system, and Aramax metal deck cladding, all supported by steel rod bracing. The timber form is designed to reduce perceived bulk from street level and preserve harbour sightlines — a tough ask for a structure sitting on the edge of Hobart’s CBD.

That is according to Steve Walker, Principal of Terrafolia Advisory, who spoke exclusively to Wood Central after visiting a series of LVL manufacturing clusters in Linyi, Suqian and Guigang last week. And the production pivot, he says, is only part of the story. “What stands out most,” Walker said, “is the ability to produce high-quality structural products using young plantation logs.”

Part of that competitive edge is feedstock flexibility.

According to Walker, the mills draw on a wide species mix — domestic pine (Pinus massoniana), planted eucalyptus, New Zealand radiata and European spruce — with end customers specifying wood blends, quality grades and certification requirements before a board is cut. As a result, manufacturers can produce LVL on demand, at scale, to any dimensions worldwide.

It comes after Wood Central revealed that Chinese LVL arriving at Australian ports has surged 63 per cent in the ten months to October 2025, with new ABS data recording more than 205,000 cubic metres traded in that period alone. For Walker, the use of younger fibre, purpose-built infrastructure, and on-spec production means China can land product at costs that locals can only dream of.

For global forest asset managers, Walker says this represents a real opportunity.

The implication, he says, is simple: rotation length, fibre specification and market strategy are now directly linked. “Investors who focus on productivity optimisation and value creation, and who align forest resources with the growing demand for engineered wood, will be well positioned for the next phase of the industry,” Walker said. “The future of forestry will belong to portfolios that understand how fibre, manufacturing and markets are changing together.”

It comes as Walker last month set out the detailed case for how Australia’s plantation estate could be better deployed to meet exactly this kind of demand. His paper, A National Pathway for High-Productivity Forestry and Renewable Carbon Supply, published by the Rozette Institute, argues that Australia could double its plantation output without planting a single additional tree — through smarter rotation management, fibre alignment and productivity optimisation across existing estates.

That is according to prefabAUS executive chair Damien Crough, who spoke at Offsite25, From Factory to Future, on the Gold Coast last year.

But the turnaround was not accidental. At the 2024 meeting, prefabAUS leadership acknowledged they were “frankly downbeat” about progress — Modern Methods of Construction remained absent from major national programs despite offering clear solutions to Australia’s housing crisis. But the organisation declared it “a fight we simply must win” and launched a systematic campaign to elevate Smart Building to national priority status.

It worked.

Federal commitments now include $54 million specifically for MMC development, $49.3 million to support state and territory prefab and modular programs, and $4.7 million for a voluntary national certification process. Those allocations follow the November $900 million National Productivity Fund and an additional $120 million in targeted competition payments to accelerate prefabrication adoption.

Industry Development Specialist Lance Worrall said the formal recognition marks a decisive break from the past: “Smart Building is now explicitly recognised within the National Housing Accord, and in the Future Made in Australia industry programs,” he said, adding that the 2025 election outcome had allowed governments to act with greater urgency on housing and manufacturing.

Regulatory changes are now underway.

The Australian Building Codes Board has introduced new national standards for offsite construction — covering design, approvals, production and performance — alongside a manufacturer certification framework. Industry analysis estimates the framework could deliver between $2.9 billion and $5.7 billion in economic benefits.

Meanwhile, the state governments have followed with hard targets.

Queensland has set a 50 per cent MMC target for government projects, with a dedicated MMC sub-group now embedded within its Building Ministerial Advisory Council ahead of the 2032 Olympics. New South Wales launched a $10 million modular housing pilot with pattern-book fast approvals. Victoria committed $50 million to a Future of Housing Centre of Excellence. Western Australia allocated $50 million to its Housing Innovation Program. South Australia and Tasmania each established dedicated MMC social housing initiatives.

And financial investment is shifting, too. Commonwealth Bank now offers prefab-specific lending products enabling access to up to 80 per cent of the contract price before home installation — directly addressing cash flow and procurement barriers for manufacturers and developers. A Federal Treasury working group is separately reviewing the remaining financing obstacles to scaling factory-based production.

PrefabAUS says the momentum reflects a deliberate ten-year campaign. Crough pointed to the organisation’s “Building the Future We Want” roadmap — federal recognition enabling state programs that create demand for innovation hubs, which in turn grow manufacturing capacity and workforce skills. It comes as Wood Central reported on THE PRECINCT, a new model using Australian timber to make prefab viable at scale.

The contest, industry leaders say, is no longer whether MMC will reshape Australian housing. It is whether the sector can scale fast enough to keep production onshore. “The future for Australian Smart Building is a future built here, manufactured here,” Worrall said. “We will not have a Smart Building future unless it is A Future Built in Australia.”

Automated Architecture, or AUAR, makes portable micro-factories that produce the full wooden framing of a house — walls, floors and roofs — in 24 hours. Co-founder Mollie Claypool told CNN the system produces timber panels more quickly, more cheaply, and more precisely than a conventional framing crew, freeing carpenters to focus on construction rather than component manufacturing.

It’s a claim the building and construction supply chain wants to stress-test — but the underlying model is sound.

Architects send building plans to AUAR’s AI-powered software, the Master Builder, which calculates how many panels are needed and exactly how much timber a developer needs to purchase.

The micro-factory — which fits inside a standard shipping container — is dispatched directly to the building site with an operator, who uses a robotic arm to measure, cut, and nail timber into panels, leaving precise openings for windows, doors, wiring, and plumbing. Contractors fit the panels by hand.

One micro-factory, Claypool says, can produce the framing for a typical house in about a day — a process she says would take a conventional timber-framing crew four weeks. On cost, AUAR claims its service runs 30% cheaper than a standard framing crew and up to 15% cheaper than ordering prefabricated panels from a large off-site factory and transporting them to the site.

The system can build parts for buildings up to seven storeys high.

AUAR can also respond to timber’s natural variations. It accounts for knots, bends, and warps — calculating the most efficient cutting pattern from available stock to reduce waste. “The precision of the finished panels produces a tighter building envelope,” Claypool adds, “lowering heat loss and improving the energy efficiency of the finished home.”

AUAR currently operates three micro-factories across the US and EU, with five more scheduled for delivery this year. So far, it has raised £7.7 million, with 600,000 square metres of panels in production — enough to build hundreds of homes. But Claypool’s ambition is to grow that to 1,000 micro-factories on sites by 2030, producing 200,000 homes every year.

Wood Central understands the company is in active discussions with several new US partners as part of what it describes as a growth phase, following its 2024 partnership with construction investment firm Rival Holdings. That makes sense, given 94 per cent of single-family homes built in 2024 were timber-framed, and Goldman Sachs has identified the country’s housing shortfall — estimated at between 1.5 and 5.5 million homes — as the root of its affordability crisis.

None of this is happening in a vacuum. As Wood Central reported in December, Europe’s most advanced robotic prefab plants are already showing what zero-labour panel production looks like at scale — floor and wall assemblies delivered flat-pack to site with, as Timber Development Association CEO Andrew Dunn put it after touring those facilities, “not a single Allen key in sight.”

The question is whether those models can be adapted to local conditions, supply chains and building standards — and how quickly.

That urgency is reflected in where research dollars are flowing. Australian Forest & Wood Innovations (AFWI) — a $200 million research and development fund backed by $100 million in federal funding by the Australian government — has already committed to projects targeting exactly this gap, including the Automated Design for Prefabrication in Timber Construction and The Precinct, a large-scale centre to process wood fibre into frames, trusses, wall panels and flooring at manufacturing scale.

Back in the UK, David Philp — chair of the Chartered Institute of Building’s digital and innovation advisory panel, and not involved with AUAR — told CNN the window for treating this technology as optional had closed.

“These innovations were an opportunity a few years ago, but now they’re a necessity. They’re not a nice-to-have anymore — they’re key to any construction business model.”

But the remaining barriers are not technical, he said. It’s cultural — particularly in England, where just 9% of homes built in 2019 were timber-framed, compared to 92% in Scotland. “The technology and standards are there — the real barrier is culture. We’ve got deeply ingrained traditional ways of working, so the challenge now is people and change, not tools and processes.”

AUAR is not alone. London-based Facit Technologies produces on-site micro-factories for wooden components, while US-based Cuby Technologies uses modular production units that combine to handle various construction elements. What distinguishes AUAR’s portable, container-delivered model is its flexibility — particularly relevant for regional and remote sites where logistics costs make centralised prefabrication plants impractical.

As for the broader picture, Claypool isn’t shy about what’s at stake. “Good homes are not just a construction problem,” she told CNN. “It’s a social problem. When homes are scarce, and we’re slow to build them, everything else suffers.”

• To learn why the UK’s largest contractors are looking to modern methods of construction – like prefabrication using mass timber parts – to meet the country’s target of 300,000 new dwellings each year, click here for Wood Central’s special feature from August 2025.

Slated to open later this year, the $1.45 billion, 39-storey ‘plyscraper’ will eventually contain more than 30,000 cubic metres of timber — shipped by European giants Stora Enso and Wiehag — across 21 storeys of the tower, with seven four-storey’ timber habitats’ sandwiched between steel-and-concrete mega floor plates above a seven-storey concrete podium.

And the glass panels going up are anything but conventional.

Spanish BIPV manufacturer Onyx Solar — working through Australian building products supplier Metz — is installing 1,794 crystalline silicon solar louvres across the tower’s active facade as part of a bespoke 247 kWp system. Speaking to PV Magazine Australia earlier this month, Onyx Solar revealed that each unit carries 28 mono-crystalline cells in a 4+4 mm glass configuration and produces 138 Wp at peak output. “The louvres also form a self-shading system that cuts direct solar heat gain internally,” Onya Solar said, turning the tower’s skin into a “vertical power source.”

Designed by BVN and New York-based SHoP, each ‘habitat’ comprises four floors of timbered space stacked inside a steel exoskeleton, eliminating the need for internal columns. “The timber floors are connected to the concrete floors via drag straps,” said Tim Allen, timber structural lead for TTW, who spoke at Timber Construct — Australia’s only timber construction conference — in late 2024. “Why build a 39-storey building partly out of timber?” Allen said. “Because it comes down to using the right timber for the right application.”

Whilst in October last year, Peter Morley, the Dexus project director overseeing the build, said the team had “broken the back on the most technical, structural phase of the project,” with the hybrid timber approach allowing the developers “to bring the building up quicker and get the façade on quicker than a more traditional build.”

“That’s because we’re jumping up five levels every time, and while we’re going up, we’re coming back and infilling with the timber within each of those five-storey zones,” Morley said. Atlassian Central is co-owned by Dexus and Atlassian, with Built and Japanese construction giant Obayashi appointed as builders, confirming the building remains “on schedule” for a 2026 opening, with the tech giant expected to take over five of the seven habitats in late 2028 following a full fit-out.

At street level, crews are also well advanced on a new pedestrian connection from Railway Colonnade Drive to the Devonshire Street Tunnel entrance — the heritage passage running beneath Central Station between Lee Street and Devonshire Street — which will, for the first time, allow pedestrians to access the tunnel directly from the colonnade as part of Central’s broader Third Square redevelopment.

“Unfortunately, there’s not much you can do apart from deal with asbestos when you find it to ensure that you’re providing a safe workplace and a safe building going forward,” according to Victorian Treasurer Jaclyn Symes, who spoke to ABC Melbourne Radio, who confirmed that the bill sits with the government and not the Australian Grand Prix Corporation under its contract with F1 rights holder Liberty Media.

Last month, Wood Central reported that the new building will include a striking timber waffle roof design — joining a growing roster of F1 facilities swapping steel and concrete for hybrid cross-laminated timber systems. Renders produced by Woods Bagot show a massive roof that will eventually shelter 14 F1 team garages.

“What excites us most about this design is how it elevates both elite motorsport and grassroots community sport under one roof,” said Woods Bagot Director Bruno Mendes, the project’s design lead. “We’ve engineered a facility that doesn’t just host one of the world’s premier racing events — it actively gives back to the local sporting community every day of the year.”

Inside the canopy, race control suites, media workrooms and administration offices sit alongside the garages, with expansive hospitality terraces framed by CLT beams and full-height glazing offering circuit and lake views for 5,000 Paddock Club guests. When Grand Prix teams pack up each year, the complex converts into a community sporting hub with seven indoor courts and clubrooms for local football, netball and basketball clubs.

Delivered by a consortium of AECOM, Icon and Woods Bagot, the redevelopment draws on the same team behind the award-winning T3 Collingwood — Melbourne’s tallest hybrid timber office building, also built by Icon.

Drawing record attendance, the Treasurer was happy to spruik the benefits of hosting the race: “I can point to the fact that the Grand Prix is a major economic contributor to the state and I know that many people are going to get along to that race this weekend,” she said. “It fills beds in hotels and people going out for dinner, and it keeps everyone busy, and it supports thousands of jobs.”

As for the existing building, constructed in 1995, Wood Central understands that full demolition is slated to begin days after Sunday’s race, with the new facility scheduled for completion ahead of the 2028 Grand Prix.

• To learn more about Melbourne’s Formula 1 Pit Lane building, one of Australia’s largest timber projects in development, click here for Wood Central’s special feature from last month.

Introduced in Congress last week, Senators Chris Coons (from Delaware) and Jacky Rosen (of Nevada) put forward the Housing Tariff Exclusion Act, which would automatically exclude lumber, OSB, engineered wood products, cement, glass, insulation, plastics, adhesives, and stone products from President Trump’s current and future tariffs.

And for anything not covered by exemptions, the bill would direct the Secretary of Commerce to establish an expedited application process, providing importers a legitimate path to relief when domestic supply simply can’t fill the gap.

After the Supreme Court struck down Trump’s tariff powers under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, the administration moved quickly to implement a new 10% global import tariff that took effect last week. And that levy landed squarely on construction materials, catching builders, dealers, and developers who had barely had time to process the court ruling.

“President Trump’s tariffs are making it more expensive to build homes in America, and it’s driving up the cost of housing for everyone,” Senator Coons said. “In a housing crisis, this is the last thing we should be doing.”

Senator Rosen was even more direct. “We know that one way to address the affordable housing crisis is by making it easier and cheaper for developers to build more housing — but Trump has done the complete opposite over the past year by imposing cost-raising tariffs on virtually all homebuilding materials,” she said. “The Supreme Court found many of his tariffs illegal, but it’s clear that he’ll use the many other tariff authorities at his disposal to continue imposing them.”

Wood Central understands that if passed, the legislation would apply to all tariffs implemented since January 19, 2025. It deliberately leaves long-standing anti-dumping and countervailing duties alone, meaning the existing AD/CVD orders on Canadian softwood lumber will remain in place.

More than 60% of builders are bleeding

The National Association of Home Builders, which worked directly with Rosen and Coons to shape the bill, didn’t mince words on the scale of the problem. As it stands, 60% of builders have already reported cost increases attributable to tariffs, which are being passed directly to buyers and renters.

Last year, Wood Central reported that NAHB members were budgeting for tariff-driven material cost increases of between US$7,500 and US$10,900 on a typical single-family build, before the latest levy was added. “This bill is an important step forward to create more certainty for American businesses and to address the nation’s housing affordability challenges,” said NAHB Chairman Bill Owens.

And there’s a structural problem that makes the tariff pain worse than it looks.

As it stands, more than 93% of U.S. homes use timber framing, and the country imports roughly 30% of the softwood lumber it consumes, with 85% of that coming from Canada alone.

That’s why NAHB has been warning for months that soaring Canadian lumber duties, now exceeding 35% before the new global tariff, were squeezing builders already battling high material and labour costs. Single-family housing starts fell nearly 7% in 2025 to 943,000, the weakest result since the pandemic recovery.

The lumber and building materials sector is united on this one

The National Lumber and Building Material Dealers Association, which had direct input into the bill’s scope, put its endorsement on the record immediately. “Lumber and building material dealers operate within a supply chain that depends on stable and predictable trade policy,” said Jonathan M. Paine, President and CEO of the NLBMDA.

“Tariffs on essential construction inputs have been shown to increase costs, create market volatility, and can delay or discourage new housing starts. By establishing a transparent and timely exclusion process for critical homebuilding materials, the Housing Tariff Exclusion Act will help stabilise prices, strengthen supply chains, and support the increased construction activity needed to improve housing affordability nationwide.”

David Dworkin, President and CEO of the National Housing Conference, said the legislation would lower building and preservation costs, reduce supply chain pressures, and ensure trade policy stops worsening the affordability crisis the sector is already trying to dig out from.

Other endorsers include Third Way, Up for Growth Action, Habitat for Humanity, Local Initiatives Support Corporation, and the Housing Assistance Council. The bill is co-sponsored by Senators Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Delaware), Tim Kaine (D-Virginia), Angela Alsobrooks (D-Maryland), Martin Heinrich (D-New Mexico), and Andy Kim (D-New Jersey).

• To learn more about the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down Trump’s tariff powers and what it means for construction imports, click here for Wood Central’s special feature. To find out how engineered wood products bound for the U.S. are now caught in the new Section 122 surcharge, click here for Wood Central’s report from last week.

A consortium led by KCP Holdings has completed a debt purchase from existing lenders Cheyne Capital and Cross Ocean Partners. KCP is a New York-headquartered investment firm established in 1952, with offices in London, Singapore, and Washington, DC.

Wood Central understands that it will shortly enter into an agreement to acquire 100% of Sunseeker’s shares. The transaction is subject to UK regulatory approvals under the National Security and Investment Act, expected to clear within weeks. All 2,000 Dorset jobs and shipyard operations continue as normal in the meantime.

Andrés Rubio steps in as permanent CEO, replacing Scott Millar, the Teneo senior managing director who held the role on an interim basis since December. Millar took over following Andrea Frabetti’s departure after six years at the helm. Rubio spent three decades in commercial leadership across the US, Europe and Asia, most recently as CEO of pan-European credit management firm Intrum AB and before that as Senior Partner at Apollo Management International.

“I have long admired Sunseeker as the pinnacle of luxury yacht building, and its heritage genuinely sets it apart,” Rubio said. “It is an honour to be leading the business at such an exciting time and with a clear path to transformative growth.”

“I am also privileged to be joining a highly experienced leadership team and a dedicated workforce that is the heart and soul of the Sunseeker brand. We now have committed owners, an established leadership team, an industry-leading Chairman, and a clear plan. With the backing of KCP and Lionheart and an accelerated focus on delivering our ambitions, I look forward to the opportunities ahead.”

Joining him is Antony Sheriff as Non-Executive Chairman. Sheriff has sat on the Sunseeker board since November 2024 and previously served as Executive Chairman of Plymouth rival Princess Yachts and, before that, CEO of McLaren Automotive.

So what does KCP actually want with Sunseeker?

Wood Central understands the new owners are backing Sunseeker’s existing business plan in full, covering next-generation product development, a return to Superyacht building, and a transformation of the operating model. KCP is investing alongside Miami-based Lionheart Capital, one of two private equity firms that first acquired Sunseeker in 2024.

Sources close to the deal say the priority is straightforward: get Sunseeker building British again. The new owners want the brand to focus on larger yachts and superyachts, with the performance reputation the yard spent decades building put back at the forefront of every decision.

The backdrop is not pretty. June 2025 brought 200 redundancies, around 10 per cent of the workforce, with management pointing to weak global demand and the fallout from US trade tariffs. By November, lenders had injected fresh capital, Frabetti was gone, and Sunseeker had installed new sales and marketing leadership in Mark Chinery and Mario Gornati. Five yachts were sold at the 2026 Miami Yacht Show. The 21-model range still ships to more than 60 countries.

Whether that’s enough of a foundation is now Rubio’s problem.

“This is a significant milestone, one that provides the financial stability and long-term commitment the business needs to deliver on its ambitions,” KCP said. “Sunseeker prepares for its next chapter of growth.”

That is according to the latest ABARES Agricultural Commodities Report, published yesterday, which revealed that the gross value of forestry (GVP) production is expected to reach $2.23 billion in 2026-27 — a 3 per cent nominal increase or a 1 per cent real increase. And over the medium term, the GVP is projected to drop back $2.1 billion, with no material growth expected until at least 2030-31.

By the numbers, total gross value production in forests has dropped by 36 per cent over the past eight years — from about $3.4 billion in 2017-18 — with softwood relatively steady at about $1.5 billion, hardwood plantations flatlining at $0.5 billion and native forest continuing what is now a 20-year decline.

According to Diana Hallam, CEO of the Australian Forest Products Association, whilst the topline figures point to the vital role of sustainable forestry in producing essential products, the report also identified serious challenges and headwinds for the sector.

“Some of these challenges and risks include high manufacturing and energy costs, greater use of structural steel in residential and mid-rise construction, as well as a growing amount of imported timber products of varying quality flooding the Australian marketplace, including from China,” she said.

Hallam said the new estimates also reaffirmed the importance of aligning the government’s policy with Australia’s Timber Fibre Strategy, which outlines opportunities for the industry to make a greater contribution to national goals in carbon, innovation, and housing construction.

Softwood up, hardwood down, native at historic lows

The value of softwood plantation production is forecast to increase slightly in 2026-27, driven by short-term movements in detached housing demand. But ABARES warns that a gradual shift toward higher-density dwellings is expected to temper timber demand over the medium term, whilst projected increases in softwood log availability will ease unit prices.

Hardwood plantation production, however, is heading the other way.

And that’s because ongoing shifts in global paper markets are placing downward pressure on woodchip demand, whilst Vietnam’s growing share of global trade — combined with projected exchange rate changes — is continuing to erode Australia’s competitiveness overseas. ABARES expects Australian hardwood woodchip exports to settle at similar volumes but lower unit prices, with Australia holding a smaller, more specialised role in the market.

And then there is native forestry, where production has now fallen to historically low levels following 20 years of contraction driven by the transfer of multiple-use public native forests to nature conservation reserves and increased harvest restrictions.

A $570 million downward revision

ABARES has slashed its forestry forecast by more than $570 million — a 21 per cent revision from its December report — with exports the major driver of the writedown, down more than $619 million amid weaker production and prices.

It comes days after this masthead reported on a new white paper from the Rozetta Institute arguing that Australia needs a national roadmap to boost forest productivity and encourage new capital into the market.

On Friday, Wood Central spoke to the white paper’s lead author, Steve Walker, Principal of Terrafolia Advisory, and co-author Dr Lyndall Bull, who revealed that Australian plantations produce just 15 to 18 cubic metres per hectare per year against international benchmarks of 30 to 50.

And on Monday, Walker went further, telling Wood Central the sector’s decades-long focus on cost discipline had come at the expense of genuine value creation. “Lifting productivity on the land already planted is the fastest and most scalable opportunity,” Walker said. “International benchmarks in Brazil, India, Vietnam and China demonstrate that 30 to 50 cubic metres per hectare per year is achievable using proven technologies already available.”

“If we can do this, we can ultimately strengthen our capacity to produce more competitive engineered wood products like LVL and other EWPs,” he said, adding that the downstream benefits could add tens of millions of dollars to regional communities.

• For more information, including the ABARES full March 2026 Agricultural Commodities Report, visit the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences.

“Keruing timber is low maintenance, hardwearing and ideal for outdoor furniture use,” according to WoodSolutions – Australia’s go-to resource for technical information, with the strong and durable wood used in various applications.

“Common uses include internal flooring, protected framing and boards, internal joinery and mouldings, lining, panelling and framework. (Whilst) preservative-treated material is (also) used for poles, piles, sleepers and cross-arms. It is often used as a cheaper alternative to oak for heavy construction, decking, vehicle building and sleepers, and in plywood.”

Keruing is a hardwood native to South East Asia and used in a wide variety of internal and external applications – according to WoodSolutions.

Used by the US Military in floorboards, tanks, and vehicles, the Malaysian supply chain is concerned that the United States (and the European Union) are behind a renewed push to add the timbers to the CITES Appendix II list.

It comes as Wood Central last year reported that the US Hardwood Federation has lobbied the Trump administration to replace Keruing (and Apitong) with American Red oak, arguing that new prototypes last five times longer than tropical timbers.

“As part of this shift, the National Defense Authorization Act has now classified Apitong as endangered and calls for a transition to domestically sourced Red Oak for trailer beds and vehicle floorboards. Congress (has already) emphasised that Apitong, sourced from tropical rainforests, is unsustainable. A bipartisan group of senators has urged the Department of Defence to accelerate the switch, citing Red Oak’s environmental benefits,” according to a US Hardwood Federation letter to the US Fish and Wildlife Service last year.

According to the EU, more than 5.3 million tonnes of Meranti timber products –sold as mouldings by Australian merchants – have been sold in the world over the decade to 2023 – with overharvesting to meet high demand the primary reason that 65% of species are threatened, and 86% have seen declining numbers: “This raises serious questions about the future availability of these species and the need for stronger trade controls,” according to a spokesperson who spoke of the push to add the species to the CITES listing last year.

Last year, Wood Central today spoke to an expert connected to the supply chain who said the push to add Keruing (and Apitong) to the CITES list could have major implications for the Australian supply of much-needed construction materials – given the push by the Victorian, WA and (now) NSW state governments to lock up supply of hardwood timbers:

“At a time when the United States is freeing up production of its forests, Australia is locking ourselves out of our resource. This leaves our supply of plywood, mouldings, sleepers and other timber products vulnerable and almost entirely reliant on tropical timber from Asia.”

A timber expert, who spoke to Wood Central about the impact of the CITES decision on Australia’s supply of timbers used in plywood, mouldings and sleepers.

• To read more about the impact of the CITES ruling on the global supply of tropical timbers, click here for Wood Central’s feature.