NSW Greens MP urges party not to back motion threatening koala park deal
A NSW Greens MP has publicly urged federal colleagues not to vote with the Nationals and One Nation to scrap a carbon credit regulation tied to a planned koala national park. A Senate vote on the motion is due next week.
Sue Higginson, a New South Wales upper house Greens MP and former forest campaigner, has broken ranks to speak out in a dispute dividing her party and the wider environmental movement over a federal carbon credit regulation.
The rule allows state governments to earn carbon credits for protecting native forests on public land instead of logging them. The Nationals, backed by the forestry industry, have moved to disallow the regulation, with a Senate vote scheduled for next week. Federal Greens senators will decide on Tuesday whether to support that motion, arguing a koala park should exist without relying on carbon credit funding.
At issue is a New South Wales government plan for a koala national park near Coffs Harbour, which was proposed years earlier but later tied to carbon credit revenue. Opponents of the credit scheme, including the Bob Brown Foundation and the Wilderness Society, argue the offsets would not represent genuine emissions cuts and would set a precedent for other states to condition conservation on carbon revenue. Supporters, including WWF, Greenpeace and Indigenous and conservation groups, warn the park's creation is not guaranteed if the regulation is scrapped, potentially jeopardising 176,000 hectares of forest home to more than 100 threatened species.
Higginson said she initially found the idea of carbon credits for protecting public forests troubling, but changed her position after the method was strengthened to require a significant cut in logging across NSW forests, beyond what premier Chris Minns originally promised. She warned that forestry industry figures are preparing an alternative, less environmentally rigorous credit scheme that would entrench native forest logging for years if the current method is voted down.
Her position is shared by some independent senators, including David Pocock and former Greens senator Lidia Thorpe, but puts her at odds with her mentor, former Greens leader Bob Brown. Brown maintains Minns broke an election commitment and that disallowing the regulation would force the state government back to protecting the park without carbon credit funding.
