The New South Wales premier says the Liberal and National parties have reached a peace deal over planning laws to protect koala habitat after the issue almost split the Coalition government a month ago.
On Friday, the Liberal premier, Gladys Berejiklian, said the parties had reached an agreement over the policy ahead of a cabinet meeting scheduled for Tuesday.
It followed an extraordinary standoff in which the Nationals leader, deputy premier John Barilaro, threatened to tear up the Coalition agreement and move his party to the crossbench over the policy.
“It was never our intention to go through the process that we did, but that is what it is,” Berejiklian told reporters on Friday.
Describing the agreement as a “very sensible solution”, the premier said the Coalition had reached “a very balanced, fair approach” which ensured the protection of endangered koalas while making sure farming communities were “not adversely affected”.
The Nationals deputy leader, Paul Toole, stepped in to negotiate the peace deal after Barilaro took four weeks mental health leave following the koala saga. Toole on Friday said the changes gave farmers certainty “and that’s all they’ve been asking for”.
The full details of the new policy won’t be released until after next week’s cabinet meeting but the planning minister, Rob Stokes, confirmed the controversial pink koala habitat maps which had caused consternation among farmers had been scrapped.
“As has been indicated for some time it is recognised there are some complications with those maps and so those maps will be withdrawn,” Stokes said.
“They were causing angst, they were causing uncertainty. Where there is unnecessary complexity, if that creates stress for farmers in particular, that’s the last thing we as a government want to do.”
Stokes insisted koala protections weren’t being diluted but said there wasn’t a need to duplicate protections “that already exist”.
The Nationals had sought a reduction in the number of koala feed trees – which have been increased from 10 to 123 in the new policy – and a redefinition of core koala habitat. But Stokes indicated that was unlikely to change significantly.
The new planning policy, which had been championed by Stokes and came into effect in March, outraged many Nationals.
The policy was unlikely to affect daily farming activities but could have impacted those who wanted to develop rural land around regional towns and farmers in the north-west who wanted to clear land.
Toole on Friday spruiked changes to the policy that would mean core farmland would be exempt from the new policy. But under the existing state environmental planning policy (Sepp) only large developments which would change the use of farming land – such as housing developments – triggered protections and it’s understood that won’t change.
