More Western Australian jobs are expected to be created in the local forestry industry over the coming months with Queensland miller, Parkside Timber purchasing two South-West mills.
Parkside Timber, a Queensland-based company, has a long history of creating hardwood products on the east coast of Australia. The company has now expanded to Western Australia after purchasing Auswest Timbers’ Greenbushes mill and Nannup Timber Processing.
The company has identified WA as a growth opportunity given the sustainability credentials of the WA native forestry industry. It plans to re-open the Manjimup processing centre which was closed in 2016 and focus on value-adding timber through secondary processing. The company will also invest $1.5 million in a finger jointing machine to process high-value products such as furniture, long-length flooring and decking.
The change of ownership provides investment and employment certainty, and the potential to create local jobs in the South-West region. The native forestry industry injects $220 million into the Western Australian economy each year and supports more than 800 jobs in the forestry industry.
This investment is another step towards native forestry’s transformation into a resilient, future industry that can deal with the challenges of utilising smaller logs from regrowth forests. This transformation started with the Gallop Labor Government’s decision to protect the South-West’s old growth forests.
As stated by Forestry Minister Dave Kelly:
“The McGowan Government sees Parkside’s investment as a step forward in maintaining a strong forestry industry that supports WA jobs, while still protecting the environmental values of our beautiful native forests.
“This is the largest native forest industry private investment consolidation and restructure in 15 years which will secure hundreds of direct and indirect jobs in the industry.
“I welcome Parkside’s commitment to creating high-value timber products from smaller, younger regrowth trees.
“The native forestry sector is an important employer and economic contributor that supplies our community with sustainable, renewable building materials and other timber products.
“The purchase follows the release of the McGowan Government’s Djarlma Plan which set out the strategic direction for the future of the Western Australian forestry industry to support healthy forests and WA jobs.”
