LABOR ASLEEP ON ENVIRONMENT AS NSW LIBERAL AND NATIONALS DELIVER

Minister for Environment James Griffin said:

The opposition’s national parks commitment yet again shows how lazy Labor is at coming up with any new plans for protecting the environment in NSW.

As at February 2023, the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) staffing level was more than 2,000 Full Time Equivalent, which is an increase of more than 25 per cent compared to the average for the period 2011-2019.

Under this Government, staff levels are at or near the highest level in NPWS history. This is in contrast to the up to 40,000 jobs that will be lost under Labor as they cancel critical infrastructure projects across NSW and even more jobs at risk with Labor scrapping the wages cap, as outlined by the Parliamentary Budget Office this week.

In last year’s Budget, the NSW Liberal and Nationals Government announced 250 ongoing firefighting and conservation roles for NPWS, and commenced recruitment for those roles in December.

It is one of the biggest recruitment drives in the history of NPWS, with:

 At least 200 roles being trained as firefighters, delivering on the Government’s response to the NSW Bushfire Inquiry
 Another 50 roles having a special focus on protecting the most important conservation assets across national parks, such as Wollemi Pines and threatened species habitat
 Around 80 per cent of these roles being located in regional and rural NSW.

This delivery from the NSW Liberal and Nationals is part of the record more than $2 billion investment in environment and heritage in the NSW Budget last year. Labor’s budget black hole of $12.7 billion and growing means our record investment in the environment is at risk under Labor.

On top of this, the NSW Liberal and Nationals Government is currently delivering the largest investment in national parks history, with $450 million dollars for more than 200 visitor infrastructure projects across the state.

The NSW Liberal and Nationals Government is also rolling out the largest ever feral animal control program in NPWS history, with more than 100,000 feral animals removed from national parks in the three years to the end of 2022.

Since 2019, the NSW Liberal and Nationals Government has expanded our NSW national parks estate by more than one million hectares – an increase of more than 15 per cent in just four years.

The NSW Liberal and Nationals Government is already implementing one of the largest ecological monitoring programs in the world through NPWS to measure and report on the ecological health of our national parks, and we have committed to zero extinctions in our national parks.

The NSW Liberal and Nationals Government has also previously committed to creating the Georges River Koala Reserve.

We’re delivering strong koala protections through our more than $190 million NSW Koala Strategy, which is the single largest investment in a species by any government. This Strategy, which I announced in April last year, has already delivered more than $50 million in actions for koala conservation in NSW.

Yet again, Labor is all window dressing and no new ideas, while we’re getting on with delivering better outcomes for the environment in NSW.