General News
3 October, 2025
Roy Butler's Survey on National Parks
In my last column I talked about moving a Notice of Motion and asking the government a question about the negative impacts of National Parks on regional communities.
It is an issue that I have been trying to keep before parliament, as the government continues creating new national parks, many of which are from pastoral stations in western NSW. While I acknowledge that we need to protect endangered species and fragile ecosystems, some national parks are created from thousands of hectares of land, despite only protecting areas that are a small fraction of that land.
There are also concerns that little consideration has been given to the impacts on the communities where the land is being purchased to create the parks and a lack of consultation in the process.
Purchases of grazing land deprive communities of the money that comes from productive agricultural land. When the land is held by primary producers, they hire workers and contractors and put money in the local economy. Many also own businesses in town which are often closed when the landowner sells up.
Despite promises of replacing this with tourism income there is rarely any investment in infrastructure for tourism and even in cases where the infrastructure has been created the parks don’t generate anywhere near enough economic activity to replace what’s been lost.
The former stations are often left to become breeding grounds for feral animals, which then invade neighbouring properties through poorly maintained fences.
Local councils also take a hit because National Parks don’t pay rates, despite relying on infrastructure that the council has to maintain.
The government has set a target of setting aside 30 per cent of land for national parks by 2030, which means there are still many more acquisitions to come. That is why I am conducting a survey online.
I want to hear from the communities affected about what they have observed with the declaration of national parks and the changes they would like to see.
All feedback collected will be used to develop potential solutions.
The must be ways to get the desired environmental outcomes without contributing to the feral animal population and impacting local economies.
