A Mount Gambier sawmilling operation has employed 18 new staff as the flow-on effects from the State Government’s $27m timber restructure package start to trickle through the sector. Source: The Border Watch
Fourth generation sawmillers NF McDonnell and Sons has boosted its workforce as the progressive timber company continues to restructure business.
The company, which is now focusing on emerging domestic and burgeoning export opportunities is pouring $9m into building a new sawmill at the site, which is expected to dramatically boost efficiency and output.
The second stage of the onsite overhaul comes just five months after stage one of its redevelopment was unveiled.
The restructuring in the pipeline across the timber manufacturing sector is considered to be the largest investment in the industry for 30 years.
South Australia’s Manufacturing, Innovation and Trade Minister Tom Kenyon welcomed the jobs boost this week during a tour of the NF McDonnell and Sons.
He attributed the jobs growth to the $27m South East Forestry Partnerships Program being delivered to industry, which included $4.3m for the Suttontown Road mill.
“I have been coming down for a few months now and to me the mood appears to have lifted a bit over the course of the last six months,” said Kenyon, who also visited the Kimberly-Clark Australia Millicent mill.
He said he believed the $17m distributed to regional timber companies had helped to not only lift confidence, but was driving major restructuring and new jobs growth.
“There is work happening, people’s businesses are improving and people are being employed, which is excellent,” the minister said.
He said a major industry study being undertaken by Finnish consultants was expected to be released in late September in its final form.
“That will give us a roadmap for what to do,” Kenyon said.
He said there was still $10m left in the $27m funding pool to be handed out as part of the revitalisation of the sector.
“We want to make sure we have something good to hand it out to – the first round we handed money out to make businesses more profitable, but I think the next round, if we can, needs to be thinking about how do we add other products and new types of industry,” Kenyon said.
“A bit of a change in the way things operate.”
He said the government would use the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland to “see if that is even possible. That would be my goal.”
He said he was particularly buoyed by the announcement by Timberlink Australia that it hoped to establish a bioenergy plant in the region.
“There are opportunities in the energy area, it is a fairly intense energy region and Kimberly-Clark and the timber mills use quite a lot,” Kenyon said.
“There is heavy energy draw and that is subject to the vagaries of the national electricity market.”
Regarding his tour of Kimberly-Clark, he said the tissue manufacturer was constantly battling to be “more and more efficient” and to keep costs low.
“Throughout the world, people are building bigger and bigger plants and have lower wages,” Kenyon said.
“To combat that they have to apply more technology and efficiency and they are doing that pretty successfully.
“It doesn’t mean it is easy for them, but they are still here.”
He said he was pleased the company had installed a new gas turbine, which meant it could generate almost all of its power requirements.
