The road to ownership · Updated 7 August 2026
The goal was never a bigger Goods.
It is a community that can collect the plastic, make the goods, and come to own the making.
540 beds·22 washers·11 communities·1 production facility
Seven stops
Seven places changed what Goods is.
A bed carried inside. A question nobody had asked. A machine named in Warumungu. Follow the seven stops, then open the records behind them.
Ninga Mia, Kalgoorlie, WA
Kalgoorlie
Before the first bed, there was a health question.
In 2018, Nic heard paediatric cardiologist Dr Boe Reményi explain how environmental health shapes preventable disease. Not that a bed is a medical device. The question was more practical: what are people sleeping on, and can it be cleaned, repaired and kept off the ground? At Ninga Mia, Gloria Turner made that question real.
"Sleep on a good mattress. For the back, the legs, the muscles."
Gloria TurnerKalgoorlie, WA
Tennant Creek, NT
Tennant Creek
Linda Turner told us what had been missing: nobody had asked.
We kept coming back to Tennant Creek. Over years, Goods listened, changed the beds and delivered more than 100 Basket Beds. Linda Turner's question changed how the work happened from then on: ask first, then build.
"We've never been asked what sort of house we'd like to live in."
Linda TurnerTennant Creek
Tennant Creek, NT
Tennant Creek
Dianne named it Pakkimjalki Kari.
People in Tennant Creek asked Goods to look beyond beds. Dianne helped shape a one-button washing-machine prototype, then gave it a Warumungu name.
"I will know where to come. If I need to wash my blanket, I don't have to go do it in town. Laundry, do it here."
Dianne StokesTennant Creek- Delivered · washing machines
- 22 in community
- Stage
- Prototype, Speed Queen base, one button
Palm Island, QLD
Palm Island
The price is only the beginning.
A bed reaches Palm Island by barge. Freight can push a durable bed close to $1,000, while cheaper beds cost less upfront but need replacing sooner.
"You have to bring them on the barge. You can't just take them on the boat. You have to pay for freight. It all adds up."
Alfred JohnsonPalm Island- Verified · sell price
- AU$750 per Stretch Bed
The product · between delivery and making
Three component types. Five minutes. No tools.
Two steel poles tension a washable canvas between recycled-plastic X-frames. It packs flat, repairs by part, and is designed so more of the making can move into community.
- Verified · current sell price
- AU$750
- Product specification
- 26kg · 200kg load · about 5 minutes
- Modelled · plastic per bed
- 20kg HDPE
Moving the making
More of the value stays.
Collect and shred local HDPE plastic.
Press sheets and CNC-cut the X-frame legs.
Sew canvas, source poles, assemble and repair locally.
The making
Seven beds by the end of day two.
Utopia homelands, NT · May 2026
Utopia homelands, NT · May 2026
Utopia
Mykel built the bed he slept on that night.
He turned the finished bed over in his hands. Bottle lids had become something strong enough to sleep on. By the end of the second day, he had built seven. We asked if he would come back every day if there were a place here to make them. "Yeah, I'll be rocking up every day to make them."
Mykel, building his bed at home, in his own voiceOpen the field story and filmManingrida and the farm
We pressed, routed and packed the parts at the farm. In Maningrida, young people turned them into forty beds.
Defy Design supplied the shredded recycled plastic. We pressed, routed and packed the parts at the farm, then sent them to Maningrida. Young people assembled the forty beds with community.
01 · Make the parts
Press. Route. Pack.
The production facility at the farm
02 · Build the beds
Forty sets of parts became forty beds in Maningrida.
Young people assembled the forty beds with community.
Alice Springs and Utopia, NT
Oonchiumpa
Oonchiumpa asked what it would take to make the beds themselves.
Oonchiumpa already runs its own business and works with young people. Its team has built beds with Goods and expressed interest in production. The next conversation is practical: could the community entity sell the beds while Goods supplies equipment, training and support?
"We want to create a safe space for our young people. There's a lack of housing, which leads to a lack of sleep, which leads to low school attendance."
Kristy BloomfieldAlice Springs / Utopia- Requested · Oonchiumpa
- Interest in owning production
- Proposed · the direction to test
- The community entity sells, Goods. supplies
The production facility
One line. Six moves. The offcuts come back.
The facility turns sorted local plastic into the X-frames that carry a Stretch Bed. Shredding, sheet-making, CNC cutting, finishing and quality checks sit in one connected workflow. The material left by each cut goes around again.
01Sort + shred
Local HDPE is sorted, cleaned and reduced to consistent chip.
02Weigh + prepare
Chip is weighed and spread evenly so each sheet begins consistently.
- 03
Press the sheet
Heat and pressure fuse the chip into dense, weather-resistant stock.
04CNC cut
The router cuts repeatable X-frame parts from each pressed sheet.
05Finish + check
Edges, holes and dimensions are finished and checked before assembly.
06Return the offcuts
Cutting waste returns to the shredder and re-enters the material loop.
Finishing workstation
The bench at the left holds tools, controls and finishing work. This is where cut parts are checked and prepared for assembly.
CNC router
The router cuts pressed plastic sheet into repeatable X-frame profiles. Dust extraction captures particles and offcuts return to the material loop.
Hydraulic heat press
Heat and pressure turn weighed HDPE chip into dense sheet stock. Sheet consistency here determines the quality of every later cut.
Sheet + parts buffer
Pressed sheets, cut parts and reusable offcuts are kept beside the line so production can flow without losing material.
Inside the line
Every station has a job.
Products and pathways
Goods has delivered products across Australia. Four communities are exploring local production.
This map shows where Goods products have been delivered and the communities we are working with on local production.
The money, in five numbers
- $750
- A bed sells for
- ~$685
- Costs to make + truck today
- ~$426
- Pressing our own legs
- $300K
- Annual funding Goods needs
- $0
- Signed today
What the funding pays for
$300,000 a year keeps Goods making beds, working with communities and growing. Capital for community production facilities is raised separately.
01 · A community production facility
Up to $222K
A full production facility can be built for up to $222,000. A community can also start with a smaller set of modules, depending on what it wants to make, what it wants to own and what infrastructure it already has.
02 · Keep making beds now
$100K a year
Continue making beds at the farm and The Harvest so Goods can keep filling community orders while on-Country production facilities are developed.
03 · Keep Goods working with communities
$200K a year
Keep visiting communities, developing products, building relationships and supporting community-led enterprises to grow and take on production.
Raising $300,000 a year lets Goods keep operating, innovating and growing while we raise capital in different ways for the on-Country facilities each community chooses.
First principles
Ask first. Make what is needed. Move the work closer to community.
Listen, make, learn, then move more of the work and value into community when the community wants it.
- 01
Listen. People define what is needed.
- 02
Make. Build for the place and the people using it.
03Learn. Test it in real life and change what does not work.
- 04
Move. When community wants it, shift skills, work and value there.
Where they are, in what they asked for
"We're given the opportunity to be consulted with, but you're never given the opportunity... it's rare that you're consulted with and then told, Hey, we are here to listen and learn, to grow this together."
Four communities asked for four different things.
We do not arrive with a facility to sell. Each community decides what it wants to make and own. We build the plan around what is already there and what is needed next.
Utopia Homelands
Urapuntja, NT
One machine
Asked for
Asked what they would want to own first, Urapuntja said a shredder. One machine, so the plastic collected around the homelands becomes clean flake on Country, with young people doing the work. The next step is to scope it together.
Where it stands
We are working toward a first modular setup built around a shredder. The site, power and operating plan still need to be worked through with Urapuntja. No funding is secured yet.
Oonchiumpa
Alice Springs, NT
The whole line
Asked for
The whole thing. Shredding, pressing, cutting the legs, training and the support to keep it running, all of it run by Oonchiumpa, with the records and the photos staying with Oonchiumpa. Young people have already built Stretch Beds behind their office and kept the first one each.
Where it stands
We are working toward a complete community-led production facility. Oonchiumpa has submitted a federal funding application and is waiting on the outcome. No funding is secured yet.
Tennant Creek
Warumungu Country, NT
The shed they already have
Asked for
To work through the shed they already have. A two-stage proposal went to them in February, and the relationship goes back years, built around turning local plastic into local work out of Our Community Shed.
Where it stands
We are working toward using the existing shed for local recycling and production. The earlier proposal now needs to be confirmed with Our Community Shed. No funding is secured yet.
Palm Island
Manbarra Country, QLD
Recycling and production
Where this sits
Palm Island is redesigning its refuse facility. That creates an opportunity to include recycling and local production as part of the new facility, shaped with the Council and community.
Where it stands
We are working toward making recycled-plastic production part of the wider refuse-facility redevelopment. The scope has not been agreed and no funding is secured yet.
Communities can begin anywhere, move at their own pace, and choose how much support they want.
Where the first facility goes will be decided with communities. Goods will keep producing beds at the farm and The Harvest while each community chooses what it wants to build and own.
The ask
"That's where we talk about allies, right? It's about letting Aboriginal people lead, but being an ally on the side."
What we need from you fits on one page.
We are raising $300,000 a year to keep Goods making beds, working with communities and supporting community-led enterprises. Capital for on-Country production facilities is raised separately: up to $222,000 for a full facility, with smaller modular options shaped around what each community needs. Earlier signed commitments make the QBE application stronger. $0 is signed today.
Signed today
$0
Nobody has signed anything yet.
What the match is
QBE Catalysing Impact, Stage 2
They can say no. It is an application, not a cheque waiting for us. Grants run from about $150,000 to $400,000 and come out of one pool shared across ten enterprises, so the size is theirs to set. What the work costs is built from the bottom, line by line.
Give
The Butterfly Movement Ltd, the charity
What it pays for
Pays for the work no bed sale covers: sitting down and listening before anything is built, training the people who will run the machines, and keeping the doors open while bed numbers climb. It never buys a share of the company.
What comes back
No money comes back. Butterfly has been endorsed to receive tax deductible gifts since January 2012. We are still working out how the receipt actually gets issued, so ask us where that is up to before you write the amount.
Counts toward the QBE match.
Lend
A Curious Tractor Pty Ltd, selling as Goods.
What it pays for
Buys the press, the shredder and the machine that cuts the legs, and covers the gap between building beds and getting paid for them. They are the same machines a community can take one at a time.
What comes back
Your money back, out of bed sales, on terms agreed with you: the rate, the term and when repayment starts. Nobody has agreed those terms yet, and we will not promise a return until the repayment plan is clear.
Counts toward the QBE match. It is the form QBE would rather see.
Buy beds
A Curious Tractor Pty Ltd, selling as Goods.
What it pays for
$750 a bed. A community asks for beds, we make them, and they arrive.
What comes back
Beds in community, and an invoice. Money we earn rather than money we are given.
Outside the QBE match.