The Hon. Julie Collins, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries And Forestry; Senator The Hon. Murray Watt, Minister for The Environment and Water; Senator The Hon. Tim Ayres, Minister for Industry and Innovation, Minister for Science, Joint Media Release, 27 November 2025
The Albanese Government is delivering a secure and sustainable future for timber and forestry workers in Australia, supporting jobs and communities across New South Wales, Tasmania and the wider industry.
The industry is of such strategic importance to the Australian community we today designate it a priority industry under our Future Made in Australia plans.
We’ll work with the sector to identify different opportunities under both the Net Zero Transformation Stream and the Economic Resilience Team.
To complement this, today we are announcing the Albanese Government will establish a $300 million Forestry Growth Fund to deliver a bigger forestry industry that supports more secure jobs, better pay and more high-value output.
This is a ground breaking new investment in better security for Australian timber and forestry workers and better environmental outcomes for Australia’s environment.
It builds on the Albanese Government’s previous investments to deliver new opportunities for Australia’s forestry industry, with $300 million already committed to help improve the sector’s capacity and capability.
The Timber Fibre Strategy developed with industry outlines how the forestry sector is increasingly relying on plantation timber, which provides opportunities to improve the sustainability of the industry and move up the value chain for timber products.
This is about using science and evidence to prove all forestry in Australia is undertaken at the highest standard.
The Government is backing forestry and timber workers through our Forestry Growth Fund that will invest in the new equipment and facilities to enable industry modernisation and advanced processing.
This package will also support parts of the sector operating under Regional Forest Agreements to implement the new reforms that come into effect under the EPBC Act reforms.
As part of efforts to ensure the environmental performance of forestry in Australia, plans for forestry operations currently covered by Regional Forestry Agreements will require accreditation under new National Environmental Standards by 1 July 2027.
The initial investment in the Forestry Growth Fund announced today includes:
- $150 million in concessional finance to support the modernisation of processing across the industry and deliver on the Timber Fibre Strategy.
- This funding will support the re-tooling of mills and processing facilities as they increase output and move up the value chain.
- The funding will also be available to support value adding and greater output, with a focus on boosting timber for housing construction.
- The financing will be delivered through the National Reconstruction Fund.
- $150 million industry growth grants that will support:
- Training and support for existing and new forestry workforce, workplace health and safety, community well-being and workforce productivity initiatives
- Engineered wood products innovation program to increase output of value-added products
- Housing construction supply-chain support
The Government will immediately commence consultation on final package design with the State Governments, the forestry sector, unions and communities.
I have worked as a forester for 40 years with a focus on eucalypt tree breeding and plantation silviculture.
The plantation sector will never replace the high quality products supplied from native forests unless:
1) Plantations are established on high productivity land (not the back paddock with low productivity);
2) There is a commitment to silviculture which aimed at producing high quality, defect free timber (no knots, tension wood and kino veins)
3) The price paid for logs and the processed timber reflects the true value of the cost of production.
Even if all these things happened it will take at least 30 years to generate sufficient logs, if we start now. Every year of delay is a year lost.
There are plenty of talkers but very few walkers in this game.
Australian production native forests are already subject to the strictest environmental controls in the world. I’ve attended international conservation and forestry conferences where people say to me that Australian forest regulation and management is the benchmark for others.
It’s a pity that politics and hubris has dominated the industry for so long.