Hunger Strike at NSW Parliament: Peter’s Stand is a Call to Conscience
Pressure on the Minns Government to make good on their promise to create the Great Koala National Park is at an all time high. A letter signed by over 100 businesses calling on the Minns Government to establish the Koala Park was handed to the Premier last night in Parliament. Today, a protest is happening outside the Parliament and a man from the Great Koala National Park region is continuing his third day of a 12 day hunger strike outside Parliament.
Peter Elzer of the Mid North Coast has spent his life defending the forests of North East NSW. Now, in the face of continuing destruction of the forests within the promised Great Koala National Park area Peter is taking a courageous and extraordinary step of hunger striking outside Parliament to demand the Minns Labor Government make good on their promise and establish the Great Koala National Park.
Greens MP and spokesperson for the environment Sue Higginson said “The Minns Government’s delay has turned into betrayal and now Peter has put his life on hold and his body on the line for our forests, koalas and all of the other forest dependent threatened species. The Great Koala National Park was promised more than two years ago - yet since that promise, some of the most important forests in the Park have been logged and destroyed,”
“Peter speaks not only as a dedicated environmental defender but as a father and grandfather. He knows these forests are essential for clean water, biodiversity, carbon storage and cultural survival. Some may think hunger striking is extreme, but the real extremism is continuing to log these irreplaceable public native forests while pretending to care about koalas and climate change,”
“Forestry Corporation is costing the public tens of millions of taxpayer dollars every year to carry out native forest logging. They consistently break environmental protection laws facing prosecution after prosecution. Senior legal figures have likened them to a criminal operation. Native forest logging in NSW is not just an ecological and economic failure - it’s a moral one,”
“The delay has gone on too long, the time for excuses is over. Premier Chris Minns must keep his promise. The full 176,000 hectares of public State Forest must be protected immediately, before any more of the Great Koala National Park is lost,”
“The Minns Government must not turn its back on people like Peter - people who give everything they have to protect what little is left. This is about truth, integrity and the future of our state’s most iconic species, the koala. Labor promised to establish and protect the Great Koala National Park. We are holding them to that promise,” Ms Higginson said.