A crippling shortage of timber spells a "looming disaster" disaster for the building industry, according to the CFMEU workers union.
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The union says the current demand for drawing timber was about 175,000 cubic metres per month, compared to the current supply of 150,000 cubic meters per month.
At this rate, they warn that Australia's dwindling resources could rapidly run out, especially with COVID hampering efforts to import more wood from overseas.
Katie Fowden from Hyne Timber, the Tumbarumba mill, said demand for timber had been "extremely high" during the pandemic - too high to keep up with at their current staffing level.
"The Tumbarumba mill is incredibly busy. We are going to see a reduction this month as a result of the bushfires but at the same time we, like many other regional sectors, are struggling to secure staff," Ms Fowden said.
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"Not only is demand high, the general flow of timber is constrained. There's a number of factors globally: shortage of containers, increase rate costs, incredibly high prices in the US resulting in timber being diverted."
The mill has recently finished off the last of the burnt timber from the 2020 bushfires, which wiped out over 40 per cent of their original stock.
Much of it was unusable, but some was able to be salvaged and put to work in the rebuilding efforts.
"In the month of may saw the last of the burnt logs being trucked into the mill which was met with some celebration," Ms Fowden said.
"A lot of hard work has gone into salvaging those logs over an unprecedented 15 month period."
CFMEU national secretary Michael O'Connor said the Australian timber industry faced threats from high US timber prices as well as COVID-related shocks to the international supply chain.
Mr O'Connor said the government urgently needed to bolster the forestry industry, or else face the run-off consequences in the building sector and down the rest of the supply chain.
"In an unstable and unpredictable world, now more than ever Australia needs our forest estate to be bigger to meet future domestic demand," Mr O'Connor said.
"We need State and Federal Governments and all parts of the industry to urgently come together and discuss our proposals to address resource issues.
"This includes growing our plantation estate, supporting the value adding of the forest resource here and discouraging the export of logs to unreliable markets."
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