Bathurst sawmill receives $5.3m to help create jobs, improve production

The timber industry was significantly impacted by the devastating bushfires across the state in late 2019 and early 2020, and is still in recovery mode 12 months later.

Recognising the tough situation the industry is in, the government has stepped up to offer support through its $40 million Forestry Recovery Development Fund program.

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The government's $5.3 million investment will be matched by AAM Investment Group (AAM), which has its Allied Timber Products (ATP) sawmill at Bathurst.

Member for Calare Andrew Gee said the grant for AAM will be put towards a new production line at the Bathurst mill, allow new technology to be introduced, and see logs processed much faster and more efficiently.

"It's a great local economic story because it will support 16 jobs locally, but also 29 regional jobs throughout the supply chain," he said.

"So the multiplier effect of that $5.3 million investment will just be very, very significant, which is why the economics of the grant stacked up and, in terms of what it does locally, it helps ensure this mill will be here for many, many more years to come because it will be state-of-the-art technology, it'll be very efficient use of this sustainable product."

Mr Gee said it was surprising to know how much the Bathurst sawmill contributes to other areas.

"I think that most people would be very surprised to find out that this plant here in Bathurst supplies 50 per cent of Sydney's fence palings ... every second fence paling that you see in Sydney comes from Bathurst and it's processed here in this plant, made from local sustainable timber resources," he said.

"So it is an industry with a very bright future, but was obviously knocked very heavily by the recent bushfires and indeed this plant here is still, today, processing burnt logs from the Tumut area.

"It has been very difficult for the industry to come through that and they're still working through the backlog of burnt logs."

The CEO of AAM, Tim Gallagher, echoed Mr Gee's comments about the impacts of the bushfires.

"Effectively in the short term, there's greater supply of burnt logs being processed at this timber mill and that's really helping NSW Forestry to deal with that issue, but longer term it depletes the resource available to all the users, particularly the ones in the southern areas, so that's a significant issue for the industry," he said.

He said the company was appreciative of the grant and it will have a positive impact.

"It'll make it much more safe for everyone on site, much more efficient and we'll be able to extract more value from the fibre that we get through the process," Mr Gallagher said.