When the so-called koala wars threatened to tear the New South Wales Coalition apart in 2020, the former premier Gladys Berejiklian appeared to have secured an important victory for the threatened species.
After the former deputy premier John Barilaro threatened to quit the Coalition and move the Nationals to the crossbench, Berejiklian stared him down. She threatened to strip Barilaro and his fellow Nationals ministers of their portfolios if he didn’t back down.
Barilaro blinked, and for a brief period it appeared the Liberal party would push ahead with the updated koala habitat protection policy that ignited the conflict in the first place.
The reality was far more complex.
An intervention from the outspoken Liberal party backbencher Catherine Cusack this week has offered a different version of what really unfolded.
More importantly, however, it has also cast light on how a dizzying array of planning policies may be having an effect on a species listed as endangered in NSW last month.
After the hostilities between the Coalition died down in late 2020, the government repealed the state environment planning policy – known as a Sepp – that ignited the feud, meaning many koala habitat protections were removed.
It also introduced a controversial land clearing bill that conservation groups, such as the Environmental Defenders Office, said went against recommendations made by the NSW auditor and the Natural Resources Commission. It argued the bill would, among other things, allow land clearing on koala habitat in rural areas, if it hadn’t been listed as such prior to the legislation passing.
The bill, however, was blocked. Cusack voted against it, and was sacked by Berejiklian as a parliamentary secretary.
On Tuesday night, Cusack returned to that bill when she tweeted a text message exchange she had with Berejiklian in the lead up to the vote. It showed how Berejiklian pleaded with Cusack to support the bill because it was part of a “deal” the Liberals struck with the Nationals.
“You not supporting the [bill] means NSW loses the Koala Sepp entirely,” Berejiklian purportedly wrote.
“Am I clear. There is no longer a Koala sepp as we would have reneged on the deal.”
Cusack, who recently announced she would quit parliament, believes that deal was between the then environment minister Matt Kean and the Nationals over the government’s energy policy addressing climate change.
After reading an article in the Guardian about the government’s moderate MPs steering it away from the path taken by the federal Coalition, Cusack said the “penny dropped”.
In a speech made on Wednesday night in parliament, Cusack laid out what she said was her theory on how the government had gone “at lightning speed from a strong and principled position to total capitulation in the space of a few months”.
“I looked up the legislation and saw that the second reading speech for the energy bill was due to go before the upper house on the day the koala bill was supposed to pass – I was obviously completely distracted that day – and they were clearly connected,” she told parliament.
“The Liberals were supporting something we hated a few weeks earlier, and the Nationals were supporting something they hated a few weeks earlier.”
Kean denies this version of events, labelling Cusack’s intervention this week as a “late night Twitter rant” and “absolutely untrue”.
“Everyone knows that I fought to protect koalas. In fact, I delivered as environment minister the biggest funding commitment to protecting koalas in the state’s history, a $193m package,” he said this week.
“And I think it’s a matter of public record that my relationship with John Barilaro nearly broke the government over the stance I took to protect koalas so I’m not sure what Catherine is on about.”
In question time on Thursday, he again “wholeheartedly” rejected what Cusack had said.
“I think it’s clearly some wild fantasy that’s been dreamed up late at night,” he said.
Nationals sources have also told the Guardian they were not aware of a deal, but the resurfacing of the conflict places the government’s koala policy under scrutiny.
As the Nature Conservation Council chief executive, Chris Gambian, told the Guardian, the fact that koalas were recently listed as endangered in NSW suggests that whatever is happening isn’t working.
“All the palace intrigue in the Coalition over the past few years has resulted in less protection for koalas,” he said.
“For all the rhetoric about doubling koala numbers, logging and land clearing are still destroying koala habitat and driving them closer to extinction.
“If you want to save koalas, you have to save koala forests. At the moment, the NSW government shows little appetite for that.”
On Wednesday, Cusack described the government’s policies – which include recently allowing the extension of north coast logging contracts for another five years to 2028 – as dysfunctional.
“The NSW koala strategy is based on the idea that we can buy our way out of the problems created by private native forestry, native forest and native vegetation clearing – which is accelerating destruction by a factor of three,” she said.
“The plan sees volunteers and wildlife funds planting and revegetating areas for the future, while across the road established trees that are being used by koalas are being cut down – and it is subsidised by taxpayers.
“This is sheer madness.”
