Furphy: We need native forest logging to build our homes.

Fact: Softwood plantations already supply the large majority of timber for our housing.

The overwhelming majority of timber used for housing construction in Australia now comes from softwood plantations (Parliament of NSW Legislative Council 2022, pp.15-16).

The native forests of NSW, particularly those in the northeast, provide hardwood used to construct and furnish homes, but this contribution can be further substituted from other sources.

In 2022-2023, just 11 per cent of the saw and veneer logs harvested in Australia were from native forests (4 per cent were from NSW), compared with 82 per cent from softwood plantations and 7 per cent from hardwood plantations. The contribution from native forests declined 18 percentage points over 20 years, from 29 per cent in 2002-2003. Over the same period, the volume of saw and veneer logs taken from native forests decreased by 70 per cent (48 per cent from 2002-2003 to 2018-2019) (ABARES 2024b).

In 2023-2024, about half of the log volumes from the native forests of the NSW north coast were high quality sawlogs (assuming a wood density of 1), which are used for a variety of structural purposes. In contrast, native forest logging on the south coast mostly produces pulplogs, at around three quarters of the total volume in 2023-2024 (FCNSW 2025).

According to the Australian Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, “softwood sawnwood is commonly used in housing construction for structural framing, and has other applications including furniture, decking and flooring … Hardwood sawnwood is generally used where strength and/or durability are important and for decorative purposes, such as for flooring, decking, cladding, joinery and furniture” (MIG & NFISC 2024b).

There are, however, alternatives for these latter uses. For example, bamboo and composite materials, including from recycled sources, are available for flooring and decking (e.g. Kawana Flooring n.d.; Outdure 2024).

Moreover, existing technologies that produce structural and appearance grade products from juvenile hardwood pulplogs could be used both to bring hardwood plantations online sooner and to boost the hardwood processing industry in Australia. In the medium to long term, expansion of public hardwood plantations into areas of degraded land and regenerative forestry and agroforestry on private land can also provide new hardwood sources (Frontier Economics 2024).

Further reading

Frontier Economics (2024). Forestry transition and regional employment. A report for the World Wide Fund for Nature-Australia, 6 December. Available at: https://wwf.org.au.

MIG & NFISC (2024). ‘Indicator 6.1a: Value and volume of wood and wood products’, Australia’s State of the Forests Report, ABARES, Canberra, updated October. CC BY 4.0. Available at: https://www.agriculture.gov.au/abares/forestsaustralia/sofr/criterion-6.