{"id":7471,"date":"2023-06-16T09:42:58","date_gmt":"2023-06-15T23:42:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/?p=7471"},"modified":"2024-12-23T23:30:59","modified_gmt":"2024-12-23T13:30:59","slug":"lasting-wounds-for-timber-industry-after-wa-forest-ban","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/lasting-wounds-for-timber-industry-after-wa-forest-ban\/","title":{"rendered":"Lasting Wounds for Timber Industry After WA Native Forest Ban"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The WA government hopes to \u201csalve industry wounds\u201d by announcing $10 million in industry development grants to attract new industries and support expanding existing businesses in southwest timber regions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Businesses, innovators, and organisations with planned, investment-ready projects have been encouraged to apply for matched funding grants of up to $2 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the vexing issue in Western Australia, as in Victoria, is that there is no resource to build wood processing industries, either softwoods or hardwoods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere is also a lack of confidence in the government as a commercial operator,\u201d says Gavin Butcher, whose career in plantation and native forest management spans more than 25 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt has reneged on so many deals that timber harvest contractors in the state are walking away; they don\u2019t want to take the risk of working with this government.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr Butcher said small businesses dependent on timber were \u201ctreated like mushrooms\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s hard to see these businesses continuing, so these investment grants will need to be in non-resource opportunities such as tourism, agriculture or services.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the industry\u2019s saddest losses was the closure last year of Parkside Timber\u2019s multi-million-dollar dry mill at Manjimup, followed by the loss of 45 jobs when the Queensland company closed its mill in the nearby town of Nannup.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Parkside Timber <\/a>said it had decided because the mills were no longer viable after the government decided to shut down the industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Minister for Agriculture, Food, and Forestry Jackie Jarvis hoped former mill employees would find other work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“They are on the ground in these towns and will be for many weeks to come,” she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We know that the shire president was, until a couple of years ago, berating the state government about worker shortages,” Ms Jarvis said in an ABC interview.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“They have a more diversified economy; they have a big agriculture sector. I am hopeful those workers who have lost their jobs will be picked up by the local economy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The WA government hopes to \u201csalve industry wounds\u201d by announcing $10 million in industry development grants to attract new industries and support expanding existing businesses in southwest timber regions. Businesses, innovators, and organisations with planned, investment-ready projects have been encouraged to apply for matched funding grants of up to $2 million. But the vexing issue […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7466,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_wpscppro_dont_share_socialmedia":false,"_wpscppro_custom_social_share_image":0,"_facebook_share_type":"","_twitter_share_type":"","_linkedin_share_type":"","_pinterest_share_type":"","_linkedin_share_type_page":"","_instagram_share_type":"","_medium_share_type":"","_threads_share_type":"","_google_business_share_type":"","_selected_social_profile":[],"_wpsp_enable_custom_social_template":false,"_wpsp_social_scheduling":{"enabled":false,"datetime":null,"platforms":[],"status":"template_only","dateOption":"today","timeOption":"now","customDays":"","customHours":"","customDate":"","customTime":"","schedulingType":"absolute"},"_wpsp_active_default_template":true},"categories":[82],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[69],"class_list":{"0":"post-7471","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-western-australia"},"authors":[{"term_id":69,"user_id":1,"is_guest":0,"slug":"woodcentral","display_name":"Wood Central","avatar_url":{"url":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/MASTER-BRAND-MARK_POS_RGB-e1676449549955.jpg","url2x":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/MASTER-BRAND-MARK_POS_RGB-e1676449549955.jpg"},"0":null,"1":"","2":"","3":"","4":"","5":"","6":"","7":"","8":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7471"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7471\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7472,"href":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7471\/revisions\/7472"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7471"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=7471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}