FTMA CEO Kirsten Gentle has spent her career building a community around one of the most important sectors in Australian housing. Her message to builders is simple: you are closer to a solution than you think.
If you had never heard of the Frame and Truss Manufacturers Association before, there is a decent chance you have still been living and working inside their product. Roughly 80 per cent of every new detached home built in Australia contains prefabricated frames and trusses made by FTMA members. Across 280 plants, mostly family-owned businesses, this sector quietly underpins the country’s housing output every single day.
And yet, as FTMA CEO Kirsten Gentle points out, most builders have never set foot inside a manufacturing plant.
Gentle joined Aaron on The Good Builder Podcast following the FTMA National Conference, a two-day event that left a strong impression on everyone in attendance. The session delivered practical business knowledge directly from experienced manufacturers, something Gentle has spent more than 15 years building into the fabric of her association.
Her message to builders was not abstract. It was an invitation.
“If your builders haven’t been to your manufacturing plant, I’d encourage you to do so. You’ll be blown away when you see the actual process, the design, and the engineered software.”
An Industry That Was Always Offsite
One of the clearest threads running through Gentle’s conversation was the frustration around how modern methods of construction are discussed in government and policy circles.
The push toward volumetric modular housing, importing prefabricated homes from overseas, and setting up new manufacturing businesses with government grants is, in her view, missing something obvious. Australia already has a mature, experienced prefabrication sector. It has been operating for decades.
“We are the OGs of offsite prefab,” she said. “I’m sick of governments saying modern methods of construction is new. It hasn’t been. It’s been happening forever.”
The concern goes deeper than recognition. Gentle has watched government support flow toward new entrants while established frame and truss manufacturers, businesses that have survived the GFC, COVID, supply shocks and labour shortages, receive limited backing to expand into the next generation of products like sheathed walls and engineered panel systems.
“We are all happy to take that step, but governments are not offering that support to us. We fight to get a seat at the table, and when we sit there, I say, 80 per cent of the houses have our product in them. So how can you move forward if government isn’t going to embrace the very people who have been the backbone?”
“One in every 10 jobs in Australia is in the construction industry. We must make sure we protect those jobs.”
The Cost Problem Governments Are Ignoring
Gentle was direct on housing affordability. The conversation often places the burden of cost reduction on builders and suppliers. In her view, that framing leaves out the most significant contributor to the price of a new home.
“49 per cent of every cost of every new home in New South Wales is government taxes and regulatory costs. The lowest in Australia is 36 per cent. So when government says it wants more housing and cheaper housing, what they are actually saying is they want builders and suppliers to drop their prices while they continue to gouge on their 49 per cent.”
She was equally pointed about the push toward importing housing from overseas. A high-profile modular project in Cairns, built without air conditioning in a tropical climate, became her clearest illustration of what happens when local knowledge is excluded from the process.
“If they used local trades, local builders, and local manufacturers, I can guarantee you those houses would have been done and would be lasting for 50 to 100 years.”
For Gentle, the answer to housing supply is not complicated. Fix what already exists. Support the builders and manufacturers already doing the work. Remove red tape. Let the industry that has always built Australia continue to build it.
The Case for Timber
Gentle grew up in the Yarra Valley with sawdust in her veins. Her grandfather was a sawmiller. Her husband has hand-planted more than 500,000 trees. Sustainability is not a marketing position for her. It is personal.
That background shapes how she speaks about timber as a building material. Her argument is not sentimental. It is structural.
The average Australian home built with timber frames stores around eight tonnes of carbon. That carbon remains locked in the structure for the life of the building. The trees used to produce those frames regenerate in around 150 seconds, at the current rate of plantation growth.
“If timber was introduced today as a new product, my God, we’d be winning awards. We’d be winning everything. But because we’ve been here forever, everyone goes, we need something new. No, you don’t. You just need to use it.”
In 2018, the Australian Government signed a pledge with 18 other countries at COP28 to increase timber use in construction as part of a strategy to decarbonise the built environment. As Gentle noted plainly, nothing has happened since.
FTMA has trademarked Carbon Warrior as a program to recognise and celebrate builders using timber in ways that contribute to a lower-carbon footprint. A material-agnostic carbon calculator is also in development, in partnership with the University of Sunshine Coast and Carbon Trace, which will allow builders to see the environmental impact of material choices in real time.
The goal, Gentle said, is to give government the data it needs to act and give builders a story they can tell their clients with pride.
“What they’re doing every time they build a timber frame home, they’re not only building future homes and future communities, they’re building a greener future for Australia.”
A New Standard, Up to Four Stories
One of the more significant announcements from the FTMA conference was the development of Australia’s first lightweight timber framing standard.
The standard, currently being developed through the Australian Forest and Wood Innovation program’s Future Framing Initiative and Forest and Wood Products Australia, is designed to provide a deemed-to-satisfy pathway for timber framing in buildings up to four stories.
For builders currently working at two stories and looking to move into mid-rise residential, this is the roadmap. The structural engineering capacity already exists inside the nail plate companies and frame manufacturers. The new standard formalises it.
“I encourage builders, if you want to do mid-rise, if you want to do multi, the best person to help you get there is your timber manufacturer. We’re involved in the development of this new standard. We can help builders go from two stories to three, four stories.”
A Career in Listening
Gentle took over as FTMA CEO in 2009 with a background in timber and a passion for community, but no experience in frame and truss manufacturing. She started with roughly 13 per cent of the industry as members. Today that figure sits above 62 per cent.
The growth was not built on marketing. It was built on listening, on showing up, on creating spaces where manufacturers could learn from each other rather than view each other as competitors.
The approach she describes mirrors what the best builders do with their clients and trades. Relationships over transactions. Service over price. Delivery over promises.
“I believe a good builder is somebody who wants to work with partners. They’re not a silo. They want to work with their suppliers and they communicate. And they’re open to ideas.”
She also raised an opportunity that rarely gets discussed in the industry: a career pathway for builders who have left the tools due to injury. Timber systems designers, the people who translate architectural plans into engineered frame and truss layouts using specialist software, are in demand. The role is technical, indoor, well-suited to experienced builders who understand construction but can no longer do physical work.
“I’m saying to builders, if you’re injured and you’re off the tools and you don’t know what your future is, contact us. I’m telling you now, you’ll be the best timber systems designers.”
What Builders Can Do Right Now
Gentle’s invitation to the broader building community was genuine and specific.
Talk to your frame and truss manufacturer. Not just about pricing and lead times. Actually visit the plant. Sit down with their designers and review your plans together. The combination of structural engineering expertise and new product options available through manufacturers can reduce costs, improve delivery, and open up building typologies builders may not have considered.
Support the Carbon Warrior program. Understand what timber genuinely does for the environment and tell that story to your clients. A carbon certificate showing what a home has stored is real marketing with real substance behind it.
And when the FTMA begins its planned series of state breakfast seminars, bringing together manufacturers and builders in every state, show up.
There is more knowledge available in that room than most builders realise.
Listen to the full conversation with Kirsten Gentle on The Good Builder Podcast, available now on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
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General Information Only: This article is intended for general informational purposes and does not constitute legal, financial, or professional advice. Readers should seek independent advice relevant to their specific circumstances.
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