Greens weigh backing Nationals to kill NSW koala park
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- NSW Labor announced in September 2025 it would add 176,000 hectares of state forest to existing protected areas to create a 476,000-hectare reserve, said to protect about 12,000 koalas, water catchments and carbon stores.
- The Albanese government approved the NSW proposal in June, allowing the park to generate carbon credits worth hundreds of millions of dollars to fund the reserve.
- The Greens asked the Nationals to delay a Senate vote on their motion to strike down the plan, pushing it to next month while the party tries to reach a consensus position.
- Critics including the Australia Institute, former Greens leaders Bob Brown and Christine Milne argue the park fails the "additionality" test for carbon credits, since Labor had signalled it would create the park as far back as 2015.
- The proposal goes beyond the koala park by capping logging in NSW's public and private native forests well below average levels over the past decade — a provision some campaigners say could rapidly accelerate the decline of native forest logging.
- Credits generated under the proposal would total less than 1% of all credits issued annually across Australia, meaning the dispute is unlikely to decide broader questions about polluters' access to cheap offsets.
- A possible compromise would legislate that credits from protecting forests can only be purchased by industries not involved in fossil fuel extraction, which NSW Labor has said it would do.
Why it matters: NSW Greens MP Sue Higginson has warned things could get "worse, not better" if the carbon credits plan is disallowed, meaning the party risks being seen siding with right-wing Nationals against local conservationists who spent years campaigning for the park. The proposed compromise — restricting credit buyers to non-fossil-fuel industries — would be an unusual carve-out that imposes a new condition on how forest protection is funded going forward.
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