Up to 6% of Timber Imports at High Risk of Russian Fibre, Senate Told
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Senators were told that 100,000 cubic metres of imported timber a year are at high risk of containing Russian fibre, including even the FSC-certified toilet paper in Parliament House.
Australian Forest Products Association acting chief executive Richard Hyett holds up a roll of FSC-certified toilet paper during the Senate's Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee hearing on 25 June, questioning whether certification can guarantee imported wood is free of Russian fibre. (Photo Credit: Parliament of Australia)
Australians could be unwittingly funding Russia’s war through the engineered timber in their own homes, and senators heard on Thursday that not even the toilet paper in Parliament House can be cleared of conflict fibre. That is according to evidence before the Senate’s Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade References Committee, where the forest products sector said Russian wood milled in China is escaping a 35 per cent tariff and reaching Australian building sites.
Coalition senator Susan McDonald told the hearing that Australians “would be absolutely horrified if they knew” how little policing of imports there was. What started as a sanctions question had become one of building safety and lost jobs, she said, and the absence of any checks was “outrageous”.
A roll of FSC-certified toilet paper from a Parliament House bathroom was held up to the committee, and no one could say whether it carried Russian fibre or who was meant to be checking. The country, the hearing was told, could be “wiping our bottoms with conflict fibre”.
Richard Hyett, the Australian Forest Products Association’s acting chief executive, told senators that Australia had become “the dumping ground for conflict timber”. Russian logs are cut and reglued into laminated veneer lumber in China, then clear the substantial transformation test and ship out tariff-free — a step Hyett said was legal because “it’s not illegal to transform a product in China”.
When the EU tightened its own rules, Chinese mills glued a thin layer of softwood to the outside of the product so it would be reclassified and dodge the tariff, forcing Brussels into a fresh anti-dumping action. The mills are quick and agile, Hyett said, and frameworks struggle to keep pace.
The government’s own evidence is the most damaging: a Source Certain report commissioned by the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry found that half of all imported products assessed failed provenance or taxonomy claims, while every domestic sample was accurately labelled. The findings surfaced only under freedom of information laws, and no government response has followed.
Declared imports of laminated veneer lumber reached 205,000 cubic metres in the year to October 2025, up 63 per cent on the previous year and more than double the volume since Russia invaded Ukraine. The moment the tariff took effect, imports declared from Russia and Belarus fell to almost nothing, only to reappear through China, with as much as 100,000 cubic metres a year, about 6 per cent of the equivalent local market, now at high risk of carrying Russian fibre.
At April’s Sydney Build, an expo so thick with Chinese exhibitors it amounted to a China Build, mills promoted larch and claimed FSC certification despite the scheme banning Russian material. Larch is not grown in China, and when one operator offered structural timber with no paperwork at all, Hyett said, “nobody knows what’s in that timber”.
AFPA made four recommendations to the committee, the first being an extension of the 35 per cent tariff to all products containing Russian materials, regardless of where they are shipped from. Anti-dumping action modelled on the European Union, border testing and country-of-origin labelling round out the list, and Hyett said forensic tools were ready, with a government pilot already proving that origin testing works.
Gavin Matthew, chief executive of the Engineered Wood Products Association of Australasia, backed the submission, telling senators “tariffs do work, but these sanctions have not worked”. One company had already cut its workforce from about 1,200 to 950 and closed two mills, Matthew said, and neither plant was likely to reopen.
The sanctions breach is only half the problem, because so-called pop-up importers are selling structural products straight to builders through social media and Facebook Marketplace, beyond any checks on glue, formaldehyde or compliance with Australian standards. The danger is heightened when that timber is used in load-bearing or multi-storey work, the only safeguard being the redundancy built into the structure.
Where the system fails most, the sector argues, is in the law itself, and AFPA policy manager Tim Lester told the committee “it’s not illegal for Chinese businesses to buy Russian logs”. Australia’s illegal-harvesting laws catch unlawfully sourced wood but not conflict timber, and “what we don’t have”, Lester said, “is coverage of conflict timber”.
The session was the inquiry’s second public hearing into the effectiveness of Australia’s sanctions against Russia, secured after a public campaign over conflict timber reaching Australian homes. Answers to questions taken on notice are now due, and industry waits to see whether the government extends the tariff or stands up the border testing the sector says is ready to go.
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