Longford timber mill proprietor Josh Holyman expects to be out of business by Christmas. Source: The Examiner
The second-generation Tasmanian timber miller has made the difficult decision to apply for government assistance on offer to exit the industry.
It’s not a decision that Holyman planned.
“I have no choice – I can’t get the log quality I need to keep the business going,” he said.
Holyman believes that he is one of the casualties of Tasmania’s forestry intergovernmental agreement, which has seen the quota of non-plantation timber that can be harvested significantly reduced.
When he shuts the dry mill his eight full-time and part-time workers will be without jobs.
“But it’s not just our employees who will be affected,” Holyman said.
“We have worked out that we probably provide work for about 2000 blokes indirectly – there are a lot of people who rely on us.”
They include the people who service the forklifts for his kiln-dried timber yard and supply the tyres to the five sawmill operations that supply him with logs.
At least one of them has already decided he too will shut down his business.
Campbell Town man Brad Johnson is a fifth-generation sawmiller who has been supplying Holyman with timber for his drying yards.
“I can’t get the quality of timber that’s needed any more – our stuff is used for select grade flooring,” he said.
Johnson’s forebears started sawmilling in North-East Tasmania in the late 1880s. His father, Barry, moved the operation to Lake Leake and Campbell Town in 1948.
“We can only source our logs from Forestry Tasmania coupes,” he said.
“In the past that has been from the Western Tiers and further south – most recently it’s come from Butlers Gorge, but that has closed down.”
Holyman said that production at his mill had dropped from 200 to 250 cubic metres a month to about 45 cubic metres.
“The kiln was shut down for six weeks in March-April because we had nothing to put in it,” he said.
The two sawmillers said that plantation timber could not keep operations like theirs going.
“It was planted for pulpwood – we’ve trialled it but if you put it on the racks it just bows and twists,” Holyman said.
He has a small farm with his father that they hope to develop when he shuts the mill.
He reckons it will take about six months to wind up the operation.
