THE Berejiklian government remains teetering despite Nationals leader John Barilaro walking back plans to withdraw his parliamentary support.
The Deputy Premier last week announced – then withdrew – plans to lead his entire Nationals team to the cross benches in response to the government’s latest Greens-inspired environmental planning policy – the so-called koala habitat protection plan.
Mr Barilaro’s move would have split the Coalition down Party lines and thrown the NSW Liberals into minority government.
The government currently holds a one seat majority with 13 of its 48 seats held by National MPs.
DIVISIVE
Despite the Nationals withdrawing its threat after a blunt meeting with Premier Gladys Berejikilian on Friday, a number of individual MPs have indicated – publicly and privately – that they may still “independently” withdraw support.
Nationals MPs Chris Gulaptis and Gurmesh Singh said they could still relocate to the cross benches over the government’s divisive environmental planning bill.
Described as a back-door move to lock-up trees, the MPs blame fire hazard mismanagement – and not a lack of habitat – for the high loss of wildlife during last summer’s bushfires.
“The three billion native species that were killed in the bushfires weren’t killed because of the timber industry or the farmers,” Mr Gulaptis said.
“It was because of the mismanagement of our natural state,” he said, referring to recent downscaling of NSW hazard reduction burns.
NSW Upper House MP and One Nation leader Mark Latham said the koala bill was the latest of a long list of policy and cultural “failures”.
LEADERSHIP
“The Liberals have presided over policy disasters in the grey hound decision, the council amalgamations, the abortion bill last year and uranium mining,” he told Sky News anchor Alan Jones yesterday.
“If you don’t know what you believe in politics, you’re not nurturing your Party, you’re not providing leadership and you’re not providing policy direction.
“This is not the fault of John Barilaro, it’s the failure of the Premier to nurture her government with policy leadership.”
Mr Latham said the koala policy would lock up not just rural areas but suburban back-yard trees, hindering home extensions, pools and granny flats.
“The Premier has allowed her Green-Liberal ministers to run and they have done nothing to correct this absolute disaster,” he said.
“I don’t know how Barilaro puts up with it, I would have been ripping the furniture apart.
“This is as whacky a policy outcome as you would ever see.”PC
Looks like yet another policy that’s big on signalling but hopeless on implementation. The result is worse than doing nothing.
If the Environmentalists could get over their hatred of people who make a living out of the land and worked with them, they would find a vast majority who would empathise with their (apparent) concerns. I say apparent because I suspect their real goal is one of socialism, which will fail the koala population as well as the human one.
It’s not about koalas!
The plans preserve swathes of trees across parts of Sydney and across the state.
Areas where no koalas have existed for over 50 years.
It’s not about koalas, it’s trees!
Preserving trees in Sydney residents back yards.
Read Mark Latham’s Outsiders opinion on FB. This is where I’m getting this from.
It preserves habitat that koalas could, theoretically, live in. Theoretically.
Mostly it create more obstructions to doing anything and creating more costs for consultant reports etc, funding the parasitic “green economy”