Letter to the Editor: My view on the GKNP and koala protection

DEAR News Of The Area,

THIS Labor government’s environmental policy doesn’t look like it’s being run by those in Macquarie Street, but maybe by rooftop protestors who contribute little to society and inner-city hypocrites who choose mining by consumption of the very products they campaign against.

These high-end activists are screaming “koala crisis”, all the while happily living in high rise towers built from concrete and steel, wrapped in plastics, stuffed with furniture made from imported timber ripped from forests overseas with zero environmental standards.

That’s not conservation. That’s hypocrisy.

The latest rumour out of the timber industry is that the full 176,000 hectares will be locked up in the Great Koala National Park.

Yet, only days ago, Chris Minns himself said he wasn’t guaranteeing it.

Which is it, Premier?

We got a Labor government that is being bulldozed at every turn by Penny Sharpe and activists running the show.

All the while being cheered on by inner city independents like Alex Greenwich, Jacqui Scruby and Michael Regan. Politicians who prefer the city benefits of their own ruined environment.

It’s the same old Labor.

Same chaos with the unions.

Same favouritism for Western Sydney.

And once again, its regional families paying the price.

Timber is the most sustainable resource we have.

It grows back, sequesters carbon while it grows, stores carbon as the product, breaks down naturally, can be recycled, and it even supports renewable energy and composting.

Compare that to driving a car, using a phone, or wearing a watch, all of which rely on mining products that have far greater impact on the environment than forestry ever could.

But responsible and well managed mining isn’t the enemy either.

We need metals and minerals to drive our economy and our lifestyle.

Labor’s own data paid for by the public tells a very different story from the activist fairytale.

Dr Bradley Law, the lead scientist from the Department of Primary Industries, was gagged for years.

His seven year study across 224 sites with 25,000 hours of monitoring found that regulated timber harvesting in state forests had no effect on koala populations, nor did land tenure.

The real dangers to koalas being wildfire, chlamydia, urban deforestation, vehicle strikes, and dog attacks.

Forestry, which plants more trees than it takes, doesn’t even make the top five.

And yet, instead of confronting those real threats, Labor wants to lock up the GKNP which will only proliferate pests and weeds through chronic underfunding.

Improving technology gives us better counts, and the CSIRO estimating 287,830 – 628,010 koalas in Australia shows they may not be endangered anymore.

Labor’s own high-tech drone survey backs it up with more than 12,000 koalas in the GKNP assessment area alone.

Most in state forests, not national parks.

The evidence is clear for Minns and yet he is still refusing to be transparent.

Instead of trusting their own robust data, Labor relies on activist driven ideology and emotion.

They’ve weaponised the koala as a political mascot for votes in Newcastle, Sydney and Wollongong.

Worse still, the “Community Panel” designed to guide GKNP decisions was dominated by environmental NGOs, mostly from Sydney, not locals.

Only recently did Penny Sharpe start calling it the Community and Environmental Panel.

While Labor demonises our local timber, they’re opening the door to timber imports from countries that don’t hold a candle to our environmental standards.

So, in trying to “save” the koala, they’re threatening to offshore thousands of Aussie jobs, and we already import $6.8B worth of timber from countries where deforestation is rampant and unregulated.

State forests currently operate with modest Community Service Obligations, $20M in total, or $8.50 per hectare.

National parks, by contrast, carry obligations of $850M, or $121 per hectare.

These figures come from a 2019 report, and no updated analysis has been provided.

That’s a 14-fold cost difference per hectare, and taxpayers deserve transparency about whether these numbers have shifted.

The GKNP is nothing more than a glossy billboard for city votes, paid for with regional jobs.

That’s the hallmark of Labor: the same old game playing dressed up as environmental conservation.

If we’re serious about improving the environment, just look at the facts.

NSW already has 7.6M hectares of national parks compared to just 2M hectares of state forests.

At a cost of $121 per hectare, have national parks really delivered the outcomes we were promised?

And what difference will locking up another 0.176M hectares for a name change actually make, for the environment, or for koalas?

Regards,
Michael KEMP MP,
Member for Oxley.