To make NSW’s housing ambitions real, NSW must secure timber jobs.
That’s the message today from a new report that reveals the missing link between timber building products and achieving the government’s housing targets.
The report, being launched at NSW Parliament House today by the Timber, Furnishing and Textiles Union (TFTU), surveyed more than 500 NSW timber workers and found that more than four in five respondents helped supply the housing industry.
TFTU NSW Secretary Alison Rudman said governments need to get real and connect their housing targets with the workers and materials required to deliver them.
“You can’t build a house out of a housing target,” Ms Rudman said.
“You need building materials, you need skilled workers and you need businesses with the confidence to invest.
“Our members help put roofs over people’s heads. They deserve certainty about their own future.”
The report, Part of the Puzzle: Timber’s critical role in securing more NSW homes, highlights the links between hardwood and softwood timber workers, regional mills and building-product manufacturers in south-west Sydney.
More than two-thirds of respondents asked where they source their timber identified NSW forests as their source.
“The lazy claim that our forests produce nothing but woodchips ignores the building products our members make,” Ms Rudman said.
“Timber workers are part of the answer to the housing crisis. Their industry needs a future.”
One Heatherbrae worker described the personal cost of uncertainty:
“I make stuff for houses every day but the bank won’t lend me the money to build my own home because they say they don’t think my job is very secure”
Ms Rudman said the worker’s experience should be a wake-up call.
“Someone making products for other people’s homes should have the job security required to be able to get a loan to buy a home themselves,” she said.
The report comes after housing ministers backed greater uptake of modular and prefabricated construction last month. Last week, the NSW Government announced nine completed modular terraces at Schofields and a further Landcom pilot at Edmondson Park.
“The Government wants to build more homes, faster. We support that,” Ms Rudman said.
“But faster building needs reliable supplies. Ministers need to join the dots between their housing plans and the timber workers who help make them possible.
“Housing policy, manufacturing policy and forestry policy need to pull in the same direction.”
The union is calling for extended wood supply agreements, new plantations, active and adaptive forest management, timber manufacturing zones and a timber modular housing demonstration project.
“Public money spent on housing should support local manufacturing and secure local jobs,” Ms Rudman said.
“Backing in NSW timber workers is a good thing for timber workers and for families desperately trying to build a home.”
