Wednesday, 3 June 2026

 Nick McGOWAN (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (19:06): (2561) Koalas have to be one of our most precious and perhaps treasured native marsupials – in fact our animals full stop, let alone marsupials. But sadly, in Victoria our visibility over their condition, their health and their abundance is obscured. We do know that a year ago this government received a report that it commissioned through DEECA, the Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action itself, and that report was an expensive report, $850,000, authored by Deakin University wildlife ecologist Dr Desley Whisson.

I am very pleased that the Minister for Environment is here tonight.

Enver Erdogan: I have not been briefed on it.

Nick McGOWAN: You have not been briefed on it? Well, Minister, this is an incredibly important issue to not only the environmental groups in our state but Victorians right across the state, from one corner to the other, I would put to you with some confidence. The author of this report spoke out publicly because she has become frustrated because that report has not been made public. She said, and I quote:

I really fear that without effective management, we could end up losing our koalas.

By that she meant not just some koalas, but she actually meant the species and in certain parts of the state for good. We do know that this government’s track record when it comes to koalas is, well, let me be polite – it is late in the night – terrible. That is being polite, as you know. In Budj Bim, they took an approach there where they euthanised the koalas. By euthanised, I mean they literally paid somebody in a helicopter to sniper more than a thousand koalas, of which they actually recovered fewer than eight. So we do not know whether they were actually even successful in that so-called euthanasia program.

We also have a current situation unfolding on French Island right now, where their environment has been allowed to go unmanaged and again we find our koala populations under serious threat. The truth is right across Victoria environment groups that I speak to day after day are pleading for the release of this report. The public money has been used in the order of $1 million, as I said, $850,000 for this report submitted to the department over a year ago. Minister, I appreciate you are not familiar with this report, but we are now on our fourth environment minister in four years. Sadly that speaks to what is happening with this government. There is confusion, there is obfuscation and there is an absence of transparency.

I would ask the minister to break with that tradition and to make public this critical report, because it will inform not only what government does in terms of its policy in protecting our much loved and treasured koala populations but also potentially saving them from extinction in some parts and eradication in others. That would be the worst possible outcome – an outcome no Victorian would like to see.