The announcement of the creation of the Great Koala National Park is a proud moment for New South Wales. It will join the honour roll of other great decisions to create national parks in our State and around the world. In New South Wales, this started with Royal National Park in 1879, which was the second in the world at the time, then Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park on the northern beaches in 1894, which was the third in Australia. More recently, in 1982, former Premier Neville Wran made the historic decision to protect 120,00 hectares of the north-east rainforest of New South Wales. At the 1983 annual New South Wales Australian Labor Party conference, Wran is quoted as saying:
When we are all dead and buried and our children's children are reflecting upon what was the best thing the Labor Government did in the twentieth century, they will come up with the answer that we saved the rainforests.
The decision this week builds on that proud legacy for our State. The 176,000 hectares protected in the new Great Koala National Park connect existing protected areas in the region, creating a world-class land-scale conservation outcome. It delivers improved habitat connectivity all the way from the rare coastal rainforest just behind the beach at Bongil Bongil National Park, through the tall, warm temperate eucalypt forests of the Coffs hinterland, to the top of the escarpment at Dorrigo and beyond, where ancient World Heritage listed rainforests transport you back 180 million years, when Australia was part of the supercontinent Gondwanaland.
Ecological surveys done in preparation for the park found not only an abundance of koalas but also greater gliders—over 36,000 of them. This is the largest gliding possum in eastern Australia and can glide up to 100 metres. Listed as endangered, populations have decreased by 80 per cent in the past 20 years. They need tree hollows to nest in, and hollows only form in old trees, so we must let them grow old. The rare and elusive rufous scrub-bird dwells in the leaf litter and is one of the oldest species of songbirds on earth at tens of millions of years old. This bird literally would have flitted around the legs of dinosaurs. It persists in the forests of the soon to be Great Koala National Park.
The science is clear that, without protecting habitat, these and many other species are on a trajectory towards extinction. But this is not just about conserving the extraordinary biodiversity values of the Great Koala National Park area. This is an economic opportunity for the tourism industry of the Mid North Coast. Independent economic modelling has confirmed this, the Government's own assessments have confirmed this, and local businesses on the ground know this. Just a few months ago, I was grateful to travel to Coffs Harbour, along with the member for Sydney and the member for Pittwater, and meet with some of the over 100 local business owners who signed an open letter calling for the creation of the park.
The motion of the member for Sydney is comprehensive and I fully support it. It has been great to work with him alongside so many local and statewide community organisations towards this shared goal. All of those advocates who have campaigned for this for so many years have been named by other speakers, so I will not repeat them, but I thank them for giving so much energy and time to this cause. I hope they can savour this win. I absolutely acknowledge that for some in the timber industry this is a hard time, and the support for them is essential. I am encouraged to see the Government's assistance package. I will work to hold the Government to account on that.
I am very confident that I am representing my constituents in Wakehurst in advocating for the Great Koala National Park. Many constituents have written to me about it, and I know that people across the northern beaches more broadly have strong environmental values. It is my job to represent those values. That is why they choose to live close to bushland and the beach. It is also why they like to travel to beautiful natural locations. I look forward to continuing to promoting the Coffs region as a tourism destination to my constituents and one of the best in the State. With this announcement, the Government has seized an opportunity that otherwise could have passed us by. It has followed the scientific advice and acted decisively. I wholeheartedly commend the Government for it, and support the motion.
Read the whole Public Interest Debate, here.