Recently the Minister for Environment indicated the Victorian Government will not be going ahead with the proposal to establish the “great forest national park”. This proposal, brought forward by Greens/AJP/LCV aligned groups have been nipping at the heels of the government for over 10 years. These groups waged a campaign of lawfare against our sustainable native forestry industry, eventually pressuring the Government to abruptly phase out the industry in 2022, destroying thousands of regional Victorian jobs overnight.

 

SFF was the first party to reject this proposal in 2014.

 

We understand that National Parks have their place, and areas of public land in Victoria do need higher levels of protection and management. We believe in this day and age, just creating new national parks is not the answer; there are other methods that do not restrict public access and use and can provide positive outcomes for the environment.

 

In our 2018 motion (the first against this proposal) we called on the government to:

 

a. reject any recommendations by the Victorian Environmental Assessment Council that would change public land classifications to a more restrictive category;

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b. review the national park status of the Barmah forest national park and the river red gum national park;

 

c. rule out the creation of the great forest national park; and

 

d. fix the access, boundaries and signage of all state game reserves in Victoria.

 

This motion tied in the Legislative Council (which means it lost), but it did send a clear message to the Labor Party that there is significant opposition to this proposal and more restrictive land access measures in general.

 

Thankfully in 2025 the Government has listened.