Timber giant Gunns still has not secured finance to build its $2.5 billion pulp mill planned for Tasmania’s Tamar Valley.
Now it looks as though the company may have another headache, trying to fulfil its commitment to use local workers to build the mill when work eventually starts.
When trying to sell the benefits of the proposal to the community, Gunns and the Tasmanian Government promised hundreds of local builders would be employed in the project’s construction.
But the construction industry union says the economic downturn combined with federal funding of infrastructure projects has seen a boom in building work across the state, filling construction company books and soaking up the pool of skilled labour.
The union’s Tony Benson said Gunns would struggle to find a workforce if it started building the mill any time within the next two years.
“There’s work going on everywhere, there’s a massive amount of road and rail work that’s in the pipeline; there’s schools jobs, nation-building projects, there’s three high schools to be built,” he said.
He wants to know how Gunns now plans to use Tasmanian labour.
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Tasmania’s biggest construction company, Fairbrother, has confirmed it has not been contacted by Gunns about supplying workers.
The state’s other major labour supplier, John Holland, has previously raised doubts its four-year-old agreement to provide labour for the project still stands.
Industry analyst Robert Eastment says the project has been run up and down the flagpole one too many times.
He says construction companies are no longer willing to hold off on committing to other contracts.
“This mill is now two or three years overdue from when they were going to start building it, so the major construction firms naturally have to get on and run their business and take on what projects they can,” he said.
Mr Eastment says the window of opportunity for securing labourers for the massive project from any state is closing fast.
