Australia’s national science agency will keep talking to the building industry before settling the future of the North Ryde fire testing lab, in the clearest sign yet that the closure is not set in stone. That is according to Doug Hilton, the CSIRO Chief Executive, who revealed that the agency would reach a sensible view on how to proceed, hours before he addressed the National Press Club in Canberra last Wednesday.
Wood Central understands that manufacturers of engineered timber systems, timber windows, doors, and floors send products to North Ryde for fire testing that clears them under the National Construction Code, along with bushfire-zone parts tied to Australian test reports.
The address itself outlined the numbers behind CSIRO’s site closures without naming the laboratory, with Hilton telling the room that the agency has gone from 106 sites in the 1990s to 45 today, and that more than 80 per cent of its 800 buildings are at the end of their technical life.
Job losses have run to more than 1,100 in two years, with 800 support roles and 350 research positions gone, and Hilton told the room that science must work harder to hold the trust of every community it serves.
“Well covered by other parts of the research sector and industry,” Hilton said of the test CSIRO applied when deciding which areas of science to leave, speaking of the exits in general, not the Sydney lab.
Industry bodies have already objected to the closure, with the Housing Industry Association going public, the Australian Institute of Building Surveyors writing to CSIRO, and the NSW architects’ chapters issuing a joint statement. All warn of a shutdown that would leave one privately owned large-scale lab in Melbourne.
Recent work at the site shows what hinges on that testing, with Andrew Dunn and the Timber Development Association running stone wool trials at North Ryde. Timber-framed walls held for 151 minutes, and cross-laminated timber floor panels cleared in 3 hours, whereas the code requires a minimum of 45 minutes.
“Now we must work with the government on the long-term solution,” Simon Croft, the Housing Industry Association chief executive for industry and policy, said, after CSIRO extended the North Ryde lease from December to the end of June 2027.
Government funding now reaching CSIRO is directed at the buildings problem, with $387.4 million in the recent budget, $233 million in the December mid-year update, and nearly $1 billion for the refit of the Australian Centre for Disease Preparedness in Geelong.
None of the science exists touched fire testing, a service the Infrastructure Technologies arm carries and one that goes purely as a lease matter, while CSIRO placed its research cuts in agriculture and food, environment, health and biosecurity, and mineral resources.
Forestry belongs to the second of those units, with CSIRO’s forest growth, bushfire risk, and carbon work all housed inside Environment, including the FullCAM model behind Australia’s national carbon accounting. Executives told Senate estimates this year that almost a quarter of the remaining job losses would fall on a key environmental unit.
Under CSIRO’s founding statute, assisting Australian industry comes first among three responsibilities, ahead of community interests and national objectives, and Hilton called that 1949 Act the organisation’s bedrock.
