A Nationals meeting was scheduled for 8am to try and resolve the party’s position on koala protections and their threat to sit on the crossbench, as a senior Liberal warned the NSW premier, Gladys Berejiklian, was “not bluffing” about kicking the Nationals out of her government.
“No she’s not bluffing,” the planning minister, Rob Stokes, told Ben Fordham on 2GB. “She’s in a difficult position. John has said he’s effectively on the crossbench but not on the crossbench and that’s not the clarity she needs during the pandemic.”
The premier has said that unless her deputy and the Nationals’ leader, John Barilaro, pulls back from his threat to effectively sit on the crossbench and abstain from voting with the government she will go to the governor at 9am and swear-in a new minister.
Barilaro said shortly after that he was not here to bring down the government, and that he wanted to “nut out a position” on the koala policy.
“What we doing is are fighting for farmers, for protection of the community and for regions,” Barilaro said. “If that’s not worth fighting for, what is?”
“This isn’t John Barilaro steering his party towards this decision. This was driven by my members – first Chris Gulaptis then Gurmesh Singh, Sam Farraway and Wes Feng.”
All four threatened to move to the crossbench over the koala protections.
“They felt that on this issue … they weren’t being heard,” he said.
But Barilaro did not appear to have a plan to end the deadlock, saying only “I will trust my party room to come to a decision”.
Former National Andrew Fraser has been called in to assist.
Stokes angrily denied many of Barilaro’s claims about the new koala laws, saying they had been in negotiations with the Nationals for six months, and prior to that the state environmental planning policy on koalas had been on exhibition and open to public consultation.
“They want to have a rule that there must be a koala on that land,” he said. “The problem with that is we have just had massive fires that have burned through that land and the koalas in that area have been killed. We need those areas to recover so the koala can recover.”
Stokes said there were no environmental zones and it was “not true” that noxious weeds were included among the trees listed as koala habitat.
He also hit back at claims that the State Environmental Planning Policies (SEPP) legislation would stop farmers from building fences, sheds or even a two storey house.
The main impact of the SEPP would be to likely prevent farmland being turned into housing developments and this has angered some farmers on the North Coast, who saw their farms close to urban centres as a future nest egg.
“I can’t understand where John is coming from,” Stokes said. “We want to work together, there is always a way back from this.”
Stokes said Barilaro’s leadership was a matter for his colleagues, but he said the premier had made it quite clear what her views were.
One option to break the stalemate is for National party ministers to return to the Coalition and the northern NSW Nationals to sit on the crossbench.
If Barilaro’s position becomes untenable, the water minister, Melinda Pavey, has emerged as the most likely to take over as the leader.
