Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

You're right. Demand is high, supply is restrained for a whole raft of reasons, one of them being bushfires, another being logging bans in certain jurisdictions of certain areas. But, as a federal government, we'll always work with industry to help them grow, and that includes ensuring that we have as much in-country value-add as possible. That means we'll take our lead from them about what's best for the future. We want to keep timber jobs for the 52,000 Australians already employed in the sector and we want to create more jobs. When you look at export measures to prevent the export of timber, our approach is about expanding the domestic industry's home as quickly as possible in partnership with the states and with industries. You know and I know that that means helping bushfire affected sawmills upgrade and update their processing facilities through the recent $40 million bushfire program, meaning they can do more here in Australia rather than sending those raw products offshore.