John Simon

Pine Solutions

It is our prediction that the housing industry in Australia is unlikely to bounce back significantly for some time.

For structural framing and all those who are involved with these products, this will be a time of great pressure for the weak, and considerable opportunities for the strong.

This includes the whole supply chain - millers, wholesalers, merchants, and fabricators. At the same time, the unprecedented rate of change in our industry will continue.

One significant trend, which is already starting to gain momentum, is the move to treated framing.

We expect to see a lot more “blue framing” in the market in coming years, and there are already signs that some fabricators are changing their inventory to treated framing.

The Plantation Pine Framing Campaign has done a great job, together with the marketing campaigns of individual producers, to educate the market on the benefits of these products.

This will continue to be the frontline of the timber industry’s battle against steel substitution.

In keeping with the treated timber theme, the transition of decking and playgrounds from CCA to substitute chemicals will be on everyone’s minds early in 2006.

There remain a number of key issues to resolve, not the least of which being how imported CCA treated timber will be controlled.

I remain optimistic that this transition will be a smooth one, with little or no impact on the builder and consumer, who thus far has not translated any concerns about CCA into changed buying patterns.

As has been the case in Europe and the USA, there will, nevertheless, be an increasing trend from consumers and government decision-makers to prefer products that do not contain any chemicals.

Australia will continue to be an increasingly significant player in the global timber industry.

In recent years we have already seen the move of our timber furniture manufacturing industry off shore to China, Thailand and Vietnam.

This will create growing opportunities for the export of our timber to these manufacturers, who are learning the benefits of Australian timber, and gaining confidence in the reliability of Australian suppliers.

Another very significant export opportunity is for the post-Tsunami reconstruction. Some Australian Pine products have already started arriving in Indonesia and Sri Lanka as a result of excellent cooperation between members of the Association A3P.

The other side of these global opportunities is that offshore suppliers will continue to see Australia as an attractive place to which to ship lumber when other international markets have slowed.

In recent years we have seen this trend with the arrival of framing from European mills.

There is also the distinct possibility that more local services will be “offshored”, including the detailing and estimating of frames, trusses, and other engineered timber.

Automation in all parts of the industry will continue to accelerate, as companies strive to find ways to cut costs, improve safety, and increase consistency of quality.

This includes the automation of business transactions through e-commerce, a trend that has been slow to get started here, but will gain real momentum in the coming years.

Finally, in parallel to the inevitable further consolidation of the Industry, I expect that there will be changes in the Associations that serve us.

We expect that the FWPRDC will be privatised, which in my view will bring real benefits to the Industry.

Other Industry associations will have to form strategic alliances and some mergers are both inevitable and desirable to reduce the fragmentation that has characterised this sector for some time.

Over the next few years the timber industry in Australia will continue to be an exciting and rapidly changing landscape.

I congratulate Greg and Paula King and their professional team, who through TimberTrader News have provided, and we hope will continue to provide, a great channel of communication for the industry.