We Grow Houses
Environmental concerns are at the forefront for many consumers and should be a key point of difference for timber suppliers. Michael Kennedy is a very fact-based environmentalist. The founder of Kennedy’s Timbers, his position comes from a simple proposition: timber...
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Show and Sell
While many of the country’s top fabricators were gathered for the FTMA Australia National Conference, Multinail opened its doors at nearby Stapylton to show off its range of saws. On a misty March morning, almost 90 fabricators could be found at Multinail’s Staplyton...
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Fast and Easy Briefing
Wesbeam’s new e-portal for Design Centre briefs is carefully planned to be fabricator friendly – improving accuracy while saving time and reworking. Wesbeam’s Design Centre has long provided a free service to engineers, builders and timber merchants, calculating the...
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Printing Buildings
Australian research is at the forefront of 3D printing using timber products. FWPA’s latest WoodChat features Associate Professor Sandra Löschke, director of the Architecture Design Research Group at the University of Sydney. In the free 24-minute podcast, she talks...
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F&T Hits the Spot
The leaders in frame and truss gathered on the Gold Coast for the FTMA Australia National Conference, where information and inspiration were the order of the day. Every two years, FTMA Australia brings its members together with industry leaders and specialist...
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A Powerful Advocate
There was a thunderous outpouring of admiration when FTMA Australia named Jim Cheney as the 2019 Clive Martella Service to Industry Award recipient. Jim Cheney has long been a stalwart of the frame and truss industry in NSW and has driven industry improvements with...
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Frame Details
International exhibitors are teed up to display at Frame 2019 Kevin Ezard has announced more of the big national and international names that will be exhibiting at this year’s Frame Australia 2019 ‘Timber Offsite Construction’. Rubner Holzbau from Italy, will showcase...
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A Fair Dismissal
A recent sacking for leaking info has been upheld. This month I’ve summarised an unfair dismissal case decided recently that addressed two important questions. Can an employee be dismissed for failing to look after the interests of their employer? And can information...
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From the Case Law Files
The records of workplace regulators are filled with cautionary tales. By Emma Watt. Safety regulators around Australia join the courts in enforcing laws regarding safe work sites. Here are summaries of two safety cases prosecuted by regulators, and one case where an...
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Parquetry Beauty
The art of parquetry celebrates timber’s beauty and is a value-add for suppliers that’s also affordable for builders. There’s a hypnotic beauty in a good parquetry floor; watching the shift of colours across the timber blocks, and the movement of the pattern. It’s a...
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Laminate Flooring
Manufacturers that meet standards make the difference. At the same time as the European Producers of Laminate Flooring (EPLF) site recorded a changing market trend for a slight drop in sales during 2018, the Australian market is becoming saturated with regionally...
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Building Indigenous Jobs
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women are being helped to retrain for construction-based jobs. Construction is the equal third-highest industry for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employment in the country, but according to the ABS, only 10% of those jobs...
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Unit Pricing
Industry responses to a call to expand unit pricing into hardware stores. In submissions to the Federal Government’s review of the Retail Grocery Industry (Unit Pricing) Code of Conduct, consumer groups including CHOICE and the Consumers Federation of Australia have...
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Snowy Rail Bridge
A Victorian community is trying to save an historic timber rail bridge. Completed in 1916, the Snowy River Rail Bridge was part of a 100km railway lifeline for Orbost, in Victoria’s Gippsland region. At 770m, it’s the longest timber rail bridge in Victoria, with huge...
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Industry Connections
Building links between fabricators and researchers is just one of the goals behind the team planning the 5th Pacific Timber Engineering Conference. This July, some of the biggest names in timber construction will gather in Brisbane for the 5th Pacific Timber...
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IHG Expo
When the many ‘villages’ of the Independent Hardware Group come together for the annual National Expo, the true spirit of family-run independent businesses comes to light. For three days in February, independent hardware retailers gathered in Adelaide for the annual...
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Hands-on Weinig
Over three days, existing and prospective clients will have a chance to talk with Germany-based technicians and see machines in full operational mode. Weinig Australia’s machines for solid wood and panel processing have long enjoyed a strong reputation for their...
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Superannuation and OTE
In 2018, I wrote a brief guide to superannuation, however, the concept of ‘ordinary time earnings’ (OTE) warrants a closer look, as it’s the basis for employers to work out how much superannuation is due. So what constitutes OTE? Overtime By definition, overtime and...
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IFOY Award Shortlist
The Combilift Combi-PPT has been nominated for IFOY AWARD 2019. Last July TTN covered Combilift’s 20th anniversary and the launch of exciting new products, including the Combi-PPT. This high performance, pedestrian-operated powered pallet truck has a range of...
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Safe Lifting For Floor Cassettes
When Pine Design received an order for oversized floor cassettes, they turned to their trusted partner, Multinail, for support in delivering a top-quality product. Urban renewal these days comes with a raft of conditions. People want sustainable buildings, that are...
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TuffPlans That Last
A clever approach to choosing printing media means TuffPlans can survive whatever hard use or weather a worksite throws at them. After a long and successful management career in New Zealand and Australia, everyone would have understood if Peter Haszard had decided to...
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Cutting Show
Multinail is running a display for attendees at the 2019 FTMA Australia National Conference. There might be the odd sore head at Recovery at Multinail, the breakfast and demonstration being held at Multinail’s Stapylton headquarters on the morning after the FTMA...
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IHG National Winners
These are the independent hardware stores judged best in class in a hotly competitive field to take home national titles at the 2018 IHG Awards of Excellence. Just in time to meet our deadline, the winning stores were announced at the 2018 Independent Hardware Group...
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Clever Coating
A decision to pre-coat timber has led to new income streams for Brisbane suppliers Classic Improvements and Woodstock Timber Specialists, thanks to support from Intergrain. There are a lot of quality timber suppliers in the Australian marketplace. When it comes to...
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