The long-promised great koala national park is not expected to get any additional funding in next week’s New South Wales 2025-26 budget despite being a centrepiece of the state government’s environment policy.
“When it comes to the great koala national park, people will see that we’re making progress on it,” the state treasurer, Daniel Mookhey, told Guardian Australia.
“We have put money aside in the last budget [$80m over four years] to allow a bit more than just planning work to be done – what we call the first stage of the park.
“We have a forest industry action plan … that’s being developed. We intend to respond to that when the work is done.”
Mookhey said when the government was ready to make an announcement about the plan “the budget will reflect that decision”.
In March conservation groups implored the premier, Chris Minns, to declare the full 176,000 hectares to be assessed and included as part of the park in northern NSW to protect it from logging.
Since Labor’s 2023 election victory, more than 10,000 football fields of forests have been cut down in the footprint of the promised park, according to a coalition of groups campaigning for urgent action.
A multimillion-dollar transition package will be needed for timber workers to halt logging, as well as ongoing funding to establish and run the park.
“It’s incredibly disappointing if there is no new money for the great koala national park in the budget,” said the Nature Conservation Council’s NSW chief executive, Jacqui Mumford.
“We’ve had two years of delays already, and not putting money in the budget will only delay the park further.
“It’s bad news for koalas and its bad news for timber workers.”
Tuesday’s budget will also reveal the huge cost of natural disasters including Cyclone Alfred in March, which affected northern NSW; floods on the mid-north coast in May; and recovery costs for the 2022 Lismore floods. The figure is expected to be in the billions.
The government will also need to reveal the additional costs due to increased psychological claims by public sector workers after it failed to pass a bill to limit workers compensation claims ahead of the budget.
The treasurer has has claimed the additional liability will be $2.6bn over five years. The legislation is now likely to return to parliament in September.
“People will see the budget is under pressure, predominantly from two sources: first, natural disasters; and second, a failing workers compensation system that is not returning workers to their health and then to work,” Mookhey said
Asked about future climate change adaption costs, he said this would feature in different ways in the budget.
“We are embedding that type of resilience investment and planning framework in more and more areas of government activity,” he said, including water, roads, transport and maritime.
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“You can’t silo adaption from the rest of the government’s work. We have to embed it into one of the core practices.”
There may be some additional funding to help speed planning of renewables projects, with four coal-fired power plants due to close in the next 10 to 15 years.
There is also likely to be more spending on urban infrastructure.
“We’ll have more to say about how we want to pair infrastructure with housing,” Mookhey said.
“Having made massive investments, particularly in projects like Sydney Metro, having borrowed billions from our children and our grandchildren, it’s only fair and right that they have the right to have a home … that’s nearby transport,” he said.
The main theme of the budget would be the efficient investment of government funds in hospitals, schools and other services, he said.
The cost of pay rises to police, train drivers, and teachers will be spelled out but the government is still negotiating with nurses and psychiatrists.
“Fixing essential services and investing in growth is what’s been defining the budget,” he said.
The budget will include about $200m over four years to support Aboriginal children’s participation in early learning.
The funds will go toward increasing the number of Aboriginal-owned and controlled early learning centres, and to increase enrolments of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island children in public preschools.
The funding is part of the government’s First Steps strategy.
