Will Hodgman

A strong and growing forest industry is crucial to Tasmania’s future, and to the Liberal vision for a self-reliant Tasmania.

Today I visited the furniture business of David Mitchell, “Room to Move”, at Cambridge.

Room to Move is an example not only the importance of small business to the Tasmanian economy, but also the critical importance of forestry.

At Room to Move, Mr Mitchell sells furniture made out of Tasmania’s high quality speciality timbers – yet under the disastrous forest deal, supply of speciality timbers will be at least cut in half, threatening Tasmania’s high-quality furniture industry.

As demonstrated by business such as Room to Move, Labor’s plan to cut our forest industry in half will not only cost thousands of jobs in the forest industry, it will have disastrous flow-on effects right through the economy.

In contrast, the Liberal vision is for a self-reliant economy, under-pinned by supporting our key industries such as mining and forestry – not shutting them down.