“This report represents the first consistent and statistically reliable estimates of sawnwood production collected for all states of Australia. It shows how the industry has changed over the past decade, and how the industry structure differs across states,” explained Mr Phillip Glyde, Executive Director of ABARE.

In 2006-07, Australian sawmills produced more than 5 million cubic metres of sawnwood, consisting of around 1.2 million cubic metres of broadleaved (hardwood) sawnwood and 4 million cubic metres of coniferous (softwood) sawnwood.

While the Australian sawmill industry has undergone significant rationalisation with the number of broadleaved and coniferous mills down by 43 per cent and 58 per cent respectively over the decade, the average size of sawmills has increased. This has been particularly apparent in the coniferous sawmill sector, where more than 20 per cent of mills each process more than 100 000 cubic metres of sawlog annually. In contrast, around 98 per cent of broadleaved mills each process less than 45 000 cubic metres of sawlog annually.

“There are also significant differences in the structure of the sawmilling industry in each state. New South Wales and Queensland have a comparatively large number of relatively small broadleaved sawmills. The coniferous sawmilling industry is more uniform across states, although New South Wales and Queensland have a number of smaller mills based on the native cypress pine resource,” said Mr Glyde.

The report also found that, based on sawmillers’ estimates, the proportion of broadleaved sawlogs that came from private (mainly native) forests was around 22 per cent in Australia in 2006-07. Queensland and New South Wales had the highest share of privately sourced broadleaved sawlogs in Australia.

Mr Glyde acknowledged the importance of industry support in successfully conducting and analysing the survey, and stressed the need for continued industry collaboration to ensure the collection and maintenance of good quality time series data on the forest industry.