PARK WATCH Article June 2025 |

With the 2025 federal election done and dusted, Matt Ruchel, Executive Director, asks how did nature fare in the mix of culture wars and economic policies?

During the election campaign, the Coalition committed nothing to nature. The Greens, ‘teals’ and other progressive independents supported ambitious policies for nature including:

  • One per cent of federal budget for nature
  • $5 billion protected area fund
  • $20 billion for environmental restoration
  • Full reform of nature laws
  • Creation of a Land and Sea Country Commissioner as an independent First Nations voice.

Labor’s only significant nature-related commitment was the ‘Saving Australia’s Bushland Program’. The $250 million investment, staged over five years, will help achieve the commitment to protect 30 per cent of land and 30 per cent of seas by 2030.

The new investment will:

  • Kickstart the Nature Repair Market by investing in private landowners’ conservation projects and improving links between the nature repair and carbon markets.
  • Empower partnerships with philanthropic organisations, and state and local governments that protect high conservation value areas to add to the National Reserve System.
  • Provide vital safe havens for endangered wildlife.
  • Better protect degraded government land (like Defence property and other crown lands) with actions like feral pig and weed removal.
  • Support the establishment of new Indigenous Protected Areas.

The Albanese Government also reinstated their goal of reforming national nature laws and creating a federal Environment Protection Agency (EPA). However, both were dropped after intervention from WA and mining interests.

After the election result was clear, Labor did re-commit to an EPA, using a different model which may include some reform of national laws, but not what they committed to in the last term. Queensland Senator Murray Watt, new Minister for Environment and Water, will be under scrutiny.

With the ALP’s sweeping majority, they now have no excuse but to live up to rhetoric and slogans like ‘Only Labor will ensure our iconic native species and precious places are protected for our kids and grandkids’.

Victoria’s cryptic pathways to protected areas

Meanwhile here at home, there is a long list of places that should be added to our national reserve system and receive funding. High on the list is the back section of the former Holden Proving Ground, a part of the Western Port Woodlands wildlife corridor.

This remnant of intact coastal forest is still up for sale – the price has even dropped!

There’s still radio silence on the expert panel’s report on the proposed Great Forest National Park.

The Allan Government also continues to delay legislating the central west parks. It is now a full four years since the Victorian Environmental Assessment Council (VEAC) recommendations were accepted; this is the longest period any government has taken to legislate a park.

Victoria is out of sync with national and international ambitions for 30 per cent protection of land and sea; in fact, they seem to be working towards a separate set of goals.

Great Outdoors Taskforce missing in action

There are hundreds of thousands of hectares of incredible and unique public forest in the Central Highlands, Yarra Ranges, eastern Victoria and the south-west. Yet it looks like the Allan Government has officially abandoned Victoria’s decades-long legacy of evidence-led nature protection.

The Great Outdoors Taskforce latest update prioritises reform of state forests over giving threatened wildlife and landscapes higher levels of protection.

After a 180-degree flip on its bold nature promises, the State Government appears determined to throw tested and respected conversation models out the window in favour of ‘improving state forest management systems’.

Ironically, while dismissing upgraded land tenures, the Taskforce’s update reaffirms existing gaps and issues with how state forests are currently managed.

These include investment gaps for recreation and tourism, education and behaviour change, closing legislative ‘loopholes’ that could revive native forest logging and adequate and long-term funding.

Corner of contrasts – forests in eastern Victoria

One input to the Great Outdoors Taskforce has been released – VEAC’s analysis of the values of state forests in eastern Victoria. This is a desktop assessment, not a full investigation. It considers some of the key ecological, social and economic issues in the east of the state.

VEAC describes the complex and rich web of life in East Gippsland as a Corner of Contrasts ‘for the unique diversity of environments and bioregions found in a relatively small area’.

The forests are habitat for several hundred threatened plants and animals, like Long-Footed Potoroos, Greater Gliders, Powerful Owls and Orbost Spiny Crayfish.

VEAC identified three areas of irreplaceable wildlife habitat: the Errinundra Plateau, corridors between Coopracambra and Croajingolong national parks, and the Colquhoun State Forest west of Licola, where exceptional nature conservation values compete with mineral deposits.

Central Highlands study

The report only looked at some threatened forest-dependent wildlife, leaving out several critical plants, animals and communities. Nature conservation groups flagged a similar problem with VEAC’s Central Highlands study, but those concerns appear to have been ignored again.

Among overlooked wildlife are Critically Endangered Barred Galaxias (rare native fish found around the Mt Stirling part of the investigation area), Vulnerable White-footed Dunnarts (small marsupials), Endangered Lace Monitors (large lizards), and even iconic but Vulnerable Platypuses.

The report makes bold claims without backing them up. For example, it states that ‘moving away from centralised governance will help our forests and communities adapt to challenges’ but never explains what this means or how it would work in practice.

This vague approach is concerning and echoes the Great Outdoors Taskforce’s position. The report does not provide evidence or properly examine these ideas – something that would have happened during a full VEAC investigation.