Saving Koalas Is Not Easy
For more than 10 years, the current NSW Labor Government, who was the NSW Opposition for much of that time, had promised that they would deliver a Great Koala National Park (GKNP) to help ensure that koalas in the wild did not become extinct by 2050.
Two weeks ago, the Government finally announced the size and shape of that protection area.
The GKNP will be situated on the mid north coast and in simple terms will be around Coffs Harbour. More specifically it covers some of the inland bush from as low as South West Rocks and as far up as Woolgoolga. It will almost completely join together 10 existing National Parks in that area.
As a broad statement I am yet to hear from anybody that doesn’t want to protect the koala and make sure of their survival in our natural environment.
The difficult part of creating the GKNP is the jobs that will be lost in the timber industry. The GKNP will cover new areas that have historically been used to harvest timber. The impact will be felt by those that cut, transport and mill the timber, as well as the many supporting services that sit in behind.
The Government is well aware of the impact of the GKNP on jobs and is working with key stakeholders in this space. On balance, with reduced timber supply, the choice was to either (a) cut back supply to perhaps 70% for all mills and see if they could survive; or (b) cut back supply to some mills to 0% so that the remainder would continue to get 100% of supply creating business certainty one way or the other. The Government has chosen the option to completely close 6 mills and work specifically with those businesses and their workers to provide compensation, support and new career pathways.
None of this is going to be easy and obviously there are a lot of unhappy people. And that is why the Government has made the announcement before introducing the new laws. There is a lot of work to be done around the details of what support and assistance will be offered at the time that the GKNP is formally made and the impact on industry is felt. It is expected that working through the details, so that it can all be put into law, will take about 8 months.
I, along with thousands of others, will be watching this space closely as the laws are developed. While I 100% support the GKNP, I am also very mindful of the impact of major industries closing and I remind readers of the impacts felt at the time of the closure of any of our coal mines, or the Bonds clothing factory, or the Hydro Aluminium facility, or BHP.
In the world of politics, this announcement is creating quite a wave of disruption. So far in NSW Parliament there have been 3 votes allowing MPs to either support or reject the GKNP. At all 3 votes Labor and the crossbench have voted in support, the Nationals (most of them) have voted to reject, and the Liberals have refused to turn up to vote. I repeat that – the Liberals have not voted at all on the question of the GKNP! I have been in Parliament for 14 years and I have NEVER seen that.
In the generations ahead, our grandkids and great grandkids and great, great grandkids will still be able to see koalas living wild in the bush. But it does come at a cost.