Today’s nationwide advertisements appealing to senators to pass Labor’s regulation for forest carbon to be traded with major polluting industries confirms that capitalism is overtaking the creation of national parks, the Bob Brown Foundation said in Hobart today.

“I understand the desperation of fellow environmentalists faced with the Minns government’s failure to keep its promise of a Great Koala National Park, but the fate of the depicted Tasmanian tiger is poignant. The Tasmanian parliament passed legislation to ‘extirpate’ the thylacine in 1888 by putting a one pound bounty on its head. In 2026, the legislation before parliament in Canberra introduces carbon trading as a requirement for saving koalas. It is the monetisation of nature en route to the Albanese government’s aim to have Australia become the ‘Green Wall Street’ of the world. Minns and Albanese are having capitalism overtake nature. A bounty was put on the thylacine and now a carbon trade is being put on koalas. In both cases, it is wrong,” Brown said.

“NSW Premier Chris Minns should keep his 2024 pre-election promise to create the Great Koala National Park without conditions. His post-election requirement that the carbon stored in the forests be traded with polluting companies as ‘offsets’ to let them continue polluting in this age of tragic global warming is reprehensible. It is Minns Labor putting the environment and environmentalists on the rack. I appreciate fellow environmentalists feeling they have no option to go along with this. However, I call on senators not to be coerced by Labor’s anti-environmental gimmick. Over the last 150 years, Australia has created 600 national parks for their natural and cultural values, for the nation for all times: this Labor move means future national parks will depend on trading companies getting priority. It is the wrong way to go,” Brown said.

“In this age of death-dealing global warming, the carbon should stay in the forests and not be a saviour for polluting industries,” Brown said.