heyfieldmill closure how to help

received this notice today so reposted here in the hope that you can help. Risk of Heyfield Saw Mill closure Vic Forest have announced they will cut the timber quota for Australian Sustainable Hardwood (ASH) from their 130,000 cubic meters down to 80,000 cubic meters. The mill has stated it may have to close if the quota is cut so significantly. If this does happen they will seek government funding to make changes to the mill so they can mill smaller logs to make up some of the short fall. The mill employs around 250 staff directly and down stream creates another 7,000. They only log regrowth and plantation timber, no old growth is logged. To rally support hopefully to have the government address the threatened closure and provide support, ASH is holding a public meeting at: 6.30pm, Wednesday 1st February the Heyfield Memorial Hall ASH has requested anyone to attend to support the local timber industry. Faces of Forestry Given that this request is quite short notice, ASH has asked that if you want to show support to email your photo to the address below so your picture can be posted to represent a Face of Forestry. The mill hopes to gather 200,000 photos. email: [email protected] Page where these will be posted: www.facesofforestry.com.au For more information, email: [email protected] There is also started a Facebook page containing the main messages: https://www.facebook.com/savethetimberindustry

http://vwa.us4.list-manage.com/track...7&e=4366005d1e

Received it also and replied.

Pity it was not out a little earlier but better late than never

I have come to expect that with Vic forests cutting back quotas,they did it in the mill I was in and now it is gone,like so many in the Gippsland and Far East Gippsland area.
What a shame :(
Government should be able to help now,they don't have to subsidise the car industry anymore,it's gone!!!!

7000 downstream jobs? Love to see the justification of that. Guessing we aren't talking long term full time equivalent.

Got nothing against re growth logging but it does seem amazing given the price of timber that the logging industries throughout Australia cannot build a sustainable business model. Surely they knew the quota wasn't guaranteed?

The sad part is that 80,000 cubic metres per annum is probably not sustainable either.


And what do we want the government to do?
cutting back the input quantity from 130,000 to 80,000 probably means half the jobs at the Mill and in the town might go.
The government could pick up the tab for the unused investment at the mill. I'd imagine that at 80,000 cubic metres per year, the mill will struggle to pay interest on its loans -- so will be looking at liquidation in the medium term.

But overall what does this mean for timber supply in Australia?
No more Tassie Oak at Bunnings? Possibly

Id wager heavily that not one of the lost jobs will be a public servant.

We have become a nation of bankers, lawyers, accountants, public servants and economists. Everyone is clipping the ticket, but no ones doing the work.

There is barely a manufacturing job left.

One word for you - Barista!! Seems to be the job/employment that is on the rise.
Sad day for manufacturing industry.

Heyfield Mill Crisis - Australian Wood Review

I feel like a real low bastard for saying it but... let them go. I hurt for all those whos livelihoods are effected by this, and I know first hand just what this means to not just the sawmill employees but the local and regional economy... but it is what it is.
Why should big mills/big business get subsidized when they become inefficient while they let the little ones go to the wall?
And more importantly why have they run out of logs? Oh yeah... they chipped the bloody things to meet a quota for pulp when they should have been conserving anything sawlog for use as well... sawlog. Everywhere the woodchip industry goes the same thing happens - and everyone in the industry knows it.
No great loss.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by John.G

And more importantly why have they run out of logs? Oh yeah... they chipped the bloody things to meet a quota for pulp when they should have been conserving anything sawlog for use as well... sawlog. Everywhere the woodchip industry goes the same thing happens - and everyone in the industry knows it.
No great loss.

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Who has run out of logs the Heyfield Mill or Vic Forests? I haven't read anything yet that says why Vic Forests are reducing their quota.

From what I read in the industry rag, Heyfields current quota expired last year. That's how it's done - quota is sold (usually by tender) over a set period of years and at the end of the sale contract all bets are off... there's no guarantee of any further sale at all, much less a guarantee that any one company will win the tender.

in this case, due to a few fires etc, possibly over harvesting through previous cycles, VicForests have revised the forward quantity available on the next sale in that region downwards. I am unsure if the 80000 cube per annum is the total availability in the region, or just hayfields cut of it. That supply contract runs to 2042, and is the sustainable yield for the region.... basicly they're saying that over the next 20 years 1,600,000 cubic meters is all that can be harvested without damaging the long term health of the forest area as a timber production zone.

Heyfields demand for 3 million cube over that timeframe is environmentally unsustainable.... it's in the forest but when they're done it'll be a wasteland for a century. The only thing sustainable in another 20 years at double the growth rate of the trees would be Heyfields owners name.

Mate, its business. You win a sale, buy gear and go for it and at the end of your sale period there's no guarantee of another sale, and no guarantee that you'd get the sale anyway. Those trees are the property of the State of Victoria and the citizenry have a right to have their asset sold to the highest bidder, and have their asset managed for sustainable yield in perpetuity. It's tough, but if Heyfields cannot run efficiently on what the forest can grow then is that Heyfields problem or the forests problem? After 20 years on a sale contract you aren't viable enough to finance an efficient downsized mill in the land and buildings you got you deserve to fold. Let someone else have a go that can run profitably on that tonnagge: it's a commercial contract, not an inheritance.

My sale in Qld has three years left on it. At that time if the state government hasn't offered more sales, or if the state government offers a sale and my bid isn't thei best return both dollar and environmental for the people of Qld... it'll be my turn to suck some tough titty. What you won't see is a media campaign from the CFMEU and big industry to help my ass if I lose, because I ain't big business.

The squealers weren't squealing when AST Heyfields ate up all its competitors.

Mate don't get me wrong: there's no easy answers here. No win win solutions. And I feel for all involved, parts of far North Queensland are still gutted by the world heritage listing related closure of the 1980's and I know first hand just how much hurt this is going to ring not just to the people directly involved be they employees or contractors or the owners of Heyfield itself, but to the wider regional economy. If they think it's only 7000 flow on jobs they're blind, on top of the car industry stuff and the power plant shut down and dairy copping a hiding this will tear the heart out of Gippsland and turn it into a welfare desert where you can't sell your house for enough to be able to afford to move. Just like the southern Atherton Tablelands region is today.

ASH have done no wrong. They've invested hundreds of millions of dollars to install a competitive and efficient mill. It's just that there is more mill then there are logs to feed it for the next 20 years. You can't run the thing at half speed, you can't hold staff and run it 6 months a year. It is politically unacceptable to open more old growth areas to harvest (and potentially environmentally disastrous too though I don't know the real unbiased numbers there). Over cutting the existing harvest zone is just buck passing to the next generation, trees taking time to grow etc etc and that should be morally unacceptable to us all.

This has been coming for 20 years, maybe more. When all the little mills get cut off quota to feed the one big mill it's a sure sign all is not well. Tasmania went the same.

A lot has to do with mill efficiency and government attitude. Government like only having a couple big operations to deal with. Efficient mills tend to be real big or real small... the guys in the middle get squeezed out all the time. I'm surprised ASH can run that mill at 120,000 cube a year which is the minimum number they're calling for quite frankly.

Thing is there's also an opportunity here. There's 80,000 cube a year available for someone. Hard to find equipment to suit that but 2 or 3 medium sized mills could take it. They aren't quite as efficient, they won't employ everyone that lost a job... but it's not a total loss either.

The timber industry cycles. Always has, and it will until there is sufficient plantation area of suitable age to meet demand. Until then we'll be stuck in a cycle of production areas going offline and subsequent shutdowns, while other production areas open up. That's both national and international... plantations are both necessary and political nightmares... government regards them as feel good things for the simple reason that the investment in the future doesn't pay for 40+ years and they don't want to think beyond the next election.
From a business perspective plantations are great... guaranteed resource of consistent size and species right by your door allows you to invest with confidence.

Australian Forest and Timber news / daily timber news is available online FWIW. It's as bad as any other trade magazine for talking things up or down to suit it's readership.

And there's another issue, the Regional Forestry Agreements are expiring.
The East Gippsland agreement has been extended by 12 months to January 2018.
The Central Highlands agreement expires in March 2018.
and Gippsland expires in 2019 (I think).

The current posturing by CFMEU and Mill management is almost certainly about securing priority access to the Vic forest resource for another 20 years, and who else is big enough to demand a fair process?

as John mentioned above, the likely outcome is that the people of Victoria will get done over and their forests will be "given away"

The reality is that the Government know's approximate how much tree stock it has and should have planned for worst case yield.

It's easy to calculate demand for 20-40 years plus within reason...

They should be over planting, if these isn't as much demand, then wait to harvest, the tree's are only going to get bigger.

I don't like the idea of these big companies, they just want more and more to boost stock prices.

Small to Medium sawmills may be less efficient, but the money normally stays in the area due to a local owner/operator.

I also don't believe in cutting down old growth forest, as with succession planning, we should have ample hardwood plantations, but of course that rely's on smart people looking forward, that should of happened in the 1930's onwards.

People in office should be looking 25 years forward, you can't grow successfully with short term thinking.