Timber Towns Victoria Tours Gannawarra From Red Gum to Robotic Dairy

4 November 2026

 

Timber Towns Victoria Tours Gannawarra Red Gum to Robotic Dairy

Victoria’s timber towns have wrapped up three days on the Murray, with the state election now 24 days away. Representatives of Timber Towns Victoria’s (TTV) member councils spent 28 to 30 October in Gannawarra Shire for the association’s 2026 forum, field trip and annual general meeting.

Gannawarra Shire Council hosted this year’s forum, which moves to a different member region each year so councils can see first hand the industries and communities they represent. The program set out to show how a family red gum sawmill, worked forests, dairies and agribusiness support one another, and how flooding affects the region’s towns and roads.

TTV President Cr Karen Stephens, who is also Mayor of Glenelg Shire, said members were returning home with plenty to share with their own communities. “There is no better way for councils to understand each other’s challenges than to stand in each other’s mills, forests and farms. Gannawarra showed us an industry that keeps investing and innovating, and our members will take those lessons home,” she said.

The forum opened on Wednesday evening with welcome drinks and dinner at the Mates Royal Hotel, with Paul Madden, CEO of Arbuthnot Sawmills, as guest speaker. President Cr Karen Stephens presented The Honourable Peter Walsh MP Leader of the National Party 2014 – 2024 and representing Swan Hill and the Murray Plains 2002 – 2026, in recognition and appreciation of his support to Timber Towns Victoria and the communities therein.

On Thursday, Paul guided members on foot through the Koondrook mill, followed by morning tea at the Arbuthnot River Redgum Furniture Showroom and a tour of the company’s new sawmill facility. Established on its present site in 1889, the family company employs 15 full-time staff and six contractors who harvest in Victoria and New South Wales.

Paul said hosting councillors from across the state was a chance to show what a local mill means to a small town. “Arbuthnot has been part of Koondrook for well over a century, and the new sawmill was built to be able to mill additional volumes from our Victorian Licence based on the original decision of the Andrew’s government to maintain native timber harvesting from Victorian State Forests through to 2030. Arbuthnot Sawmills was also led to believe by government officials that our community forest would not be affected by legislation impacting elsewhere in the state and our licence would be rolled over beyond 2030. Arbuthnot Sawmills is now totally reliant on logs from NSW State Forests and private property which in total are only sufficient to run the original mill.” he said.

Members then spent two hours exploring Campbells Island and Gunbower Island, inspecting a rehabilitation area of a worked forest and thinning operations. Gunbower Forest covers 19,931 hectares of the mid-Murray floodplain, opposite the 31,150-hectare Koondrook-Perricoota Forest in New South Wales.

After lunch in Cohuna, the tour turned to agriculture, taking in the Quinn family’s 700-cow rotary dairy at Mincha West, the Dee family’s robotic compost barn, the first in Victoria, and The Emu Farmers Co., which has spent more than 30 years building a paddock-to-plate emu business.

The day ended in Kerang West, which saw areas hit by the 2022 floods, the town’s eighth major flood since 1909. Back in Koondrook, Thomas Chick, Chair of the Koondrook Development Committee, addressed the members’ dinner.

On Friday, members met at the Glass House, Sir John Gorton Library, Kerang, for the annual general meeting. Gannawarra Shire Council CEO Geoff Rollinson and Manager Economic Development Scott Wishart presented ‘The Art of Gannawarra’, before Dr Rob Waterworth, AFWI Enterprise Fellow at the University of Melbourne, spoke on carbon market opportunities and challenges for the plantation sector.

IndustryEdge Managing Director Tim Woods then outlined Portland’s Plantation Processing Precinct as a regional sovereign manufacturing project, before members appointed TTV’s President, Vice President and Treasurer for the year ahead.

Cr Tom Sullivan from Moorabool Shire Council was presented with a special acknowledgement award for his years of dedication to Timber Towns Victoria as a Councillor representative. Cr Sullivan has been a Cr serving at Moorabool Shire Council for 30 years and most of those to Timber Towns Victoria.

What members want from the next government

Every stop on the field trip connected to the case TTV has put to all six parties ahead of the 28 November election, and members returned home with fresh examples to support it:

• Roads that can carry the freight: projected wood flows across Victoria have more than doubled, from 14.7 million tonnes in 2016-20 to more than 34 million tonnes for 2023-27, while floods like those that hit Kerang add to the wear. TTV wants multi-year funding for rural roads and freight-critical bridges.
• Fire protection across every tenure: January’s bushfires burnt more than 400,000 hectares of forest and farmland. TTV wants forest and fuel management coordinated across public and private land, backed by a statewide network of AI-enabled detection cameras linked to the CFA, FFMVic and the SES.
• Confidence to invest: a whole-of-government forestry and fibre strategy that supports engineered timber and advanced wood manufacturing, and embeds forestry and fibre in Victoria’s climate and housing plans, so businesses like Arbuthnot and projects like the Portland precinct can keep building for the future.

Gunbower’s worked forests are the kind of landscape TTV wants better protected, and Cr Stephens made the case after January’s fires, saying “a coordinated proactive fire management approach, guided by scientific evidence, needs to be prioritised as a key method of reducing the future risk of catastrophic fires of this intensity.”

Cr Stephens thanked Gannawarra Shire Council, Arbuthnot Sawmills, the Quinn and Dee families, The Emu Farmers Co. and everyone who opened their gates to members, saying the visit had shown councils exactly what is at stake in the weeks ahead.

“Gannawarra showed us why these priorities matter, and we will keep making that case to every party until polling day,” Cr Stephens said.

– ENDS –

Timber Towns Victoria (TTV) is the peak local government body representing councils across Victoria whose communities are sustained by the forest and timber industries. TTV advocates for policy settings that support sustainable forest management, regional employment and the long-term prosperity of the towns and families that depend on working forests.

Media enquiries

Cr Karen Stephens, President, Timber Towns Victoria / Mayor, Glenelg Shire Council

E: secretary@timbertownsvictoria.com.au  |  P: 0488 900 645

Sources: Timber Towns Victoria 2026 Tour, Field Trip and Annual General Meeting program; Timber Towns Victoria 2026 Government Brief; Timber Towns Victoria, Timber Industry Road Evaluation Study (TIRES) 2023-2027; Victorian Forest Products Association and Green Triangle Fire Alliance.

Quick links

• Timber Towns Victoria Takes Roads, Fire and Forests to Gannawarra – Timber Towns Victoria 28 October 2026
• Portland Precinct Shows Investors What Timber Towns Can Build – Timber Towns Victoria 23 October 2026
• Portland Feasibility Study Points the Way for Australia’s Timber Towns – Timber Towns Victoria 31 July 2026