‘Chaos’: Parks Victoria under review as national parks promises broken

The Victorian government has abandoned a promise to create new national parks in the state’s central west by the end of this year, amid internal pressure over management of the environment and outdoor recreation in the lead-up to an increasingly tight election.

The environment sector was rocked last week by the high-profile departure of Parks Victoria chief executive Matthew Jackson, who Environment Minister Steve Dimopoulos said had left his position “by mutual agreement”.

Environment and Outdoor Recreation Minister Steve Dimopoulos with Premier Jacinta Allan in January.Credit: Jason South

“It’s clear that Parks Victoria’s current operations need to be improved to meet community expectations,” the minister said in a statement.

This was widely interpreted as a reference to access to rock climbing routes at Mount Arapiles (also known by its Indigenous name, Dyurrite), which the Barengi Gadjin Land Council and Parks Victoria were moving to restrict amid concerns about cultural heritage being damaged.

Dimopoulos announced on November 4 that many of the climbs in the popular Mount Arapiles-Tooan State Park (Dyurrite Cultural Landscape) would be closed after extensive consultation with Aboriginal cultural groups.

Defending that decision on ABC Mildura-Swan Hill on November 11, Dimopoulos confirmed more than half the climbing routes would remain open: “Over 1000 routes are still open for climbing; it’s incredible, and now they’ve been secured, so there’s certainty around them.”

Mount Arapiles-Tooan State Park (Dyurrite) is a world-famous rock climbing site and sacred area for the Wotjobaluk people.Credit: Justin McManus

That certainty, however, was short-lived: 18 days later, the minister issued a statement announcing the Parks Victoria chief executive’s departure.

He also announced consultation on the state park’s rock-climbing areas would be extended until February 2025, now led by Parks Victoria interim chief executive Graeme Dear – the former chair of the Victorian Fisheries Association.

The Age has been told by two sources professing knowledge of the situation that Parks Victoria’s board was warned that if Jackson did not go, the board’s own future was at risk. Board chairman and former MP John Pandazopoulos declined to comment.

The Age understands that in the months leading up to his departure, there was no indication that would have led the board to suggest Jackson’s days at the helm of Parks Victoria were numbered.

Opposition environment spokesman James Newbury: “If the premier had any integrity, she would sack the minister.”Credit: Joe Armao

Parks Victoria itself is now also under review by the government, a review supported by advisory firm KordaMentha. Speculation is rife within the sector that at the end of the review process, Parks Victoria could be folded into the Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action.

Opposition environment spokesman James Newbury said Premier Jacinta Allan had moved against a senior bureaucrat instead of her own minister, while Dimopoulos “sat on his hands [and] Parks Victoria is in chaos”.

“And instead of acting, the hapless minister has announced another waste-of-time review,” Newbury said. “If the premier had any integrity, she would sack the minister.”

The Barengi Gadjin Land Council declined to comment on the minister’s intervention into Parks Victoria. However, the council’s spirit officer and spokesman, Stuart Harradine, said last month that just one-third of climbing routes would be closed to protect cultural heritage at Dyurrite.

It had sought to limit access to some parts of Dyurrite to preserve ancient rock art and Indigenous stone quarries that had provided stone used to fashion tools.

Rock climbers had savaged Parks Victoria’s handling of the management plan for Dyurrite, accusing the agency of failing to consult them and proposing to ban them unnecessarily from vast swaths of the best climbing routes at the site.

National parks under a cloud

Three years ago the government committed to opening national parks at Wombat-Lerderderg and Mount Buangor/Mount Cole.

The then environment minister (now climate and energy minister), Lily D’Ambrosio, also vowed to add 7100 hectares to the Bendigo Regional Park, in Wellsford, as part of this process and said that, in 2025, the government would legislate the new Pyrenees National Park.

Those commitments have been repeatedly made in the years since, including as recently as last month in comments made to the ABC, with the government vowing to introduce the required bill by the last sitting day of the year.

But as the Victorian parliament’s final sitting day for 2024 was last week, 41 months after the then-Andrews government vowed to legislate new national parks, environmentalists have expressed fury.

“As wildlife and habitats continue their rapid decline, our elected leaders are stuck in slow motion,” said Matt Ruchel, executive director of the Victorian National Parks Association.

“After years of unnecessary delays, this government is once again twiddling their thumbs, defying both environmental experts and the wishes of the Victorian community.”

Wombat Forestcare convenor Gayle Osborne said her group’s members and supporters had campaigned for greater protection for the Wombat State Forest and its inhabitants – including the greater glider – for years.

Not happy: Wombat Forestcare’s Gayle Osborne.Credit: Sandy Scheltema

“We are devastated that the parks have not been legislated as promised,” she said.

Dimopoulos said the government still intended to introduce the bill in the “next few months”, but his office could not provide a more detailed timeframe beyond a commitment to introduce legislation “in the new year”. He declined to be interviewed.

The government established the Great Outdoors Taskforce, with former minister Lisa Neville at the helm. The taskforce said it would guide the use of 1.8 million hectares of Victorian state forest previously managed for timber harvesting.

However, a letter to stakeholders, seen by this masthead, makes it plain that no new national parks will be considered by the taskforce.

“The taskforce knows that accessing our forests for recreation and tourism and improving our biodiversity and conservation efforts can go hand in hand, and planning for these shared objectives can usher in a new era of state forest management,” Neville wrote.

“Because of this, the taskforce will not be making any recommendation for large-scale changes to land tenure, including not creating any new national parks.”

When Jacinta Allan became premier in September 2023, she expanded Dimopoulos’ ministry to include tourism, sport and major events, environment and outdoor recreation.

Matt Ruchel said the combination of portfolios held by Dimopoulos “gives you a clear message”.

“There’s a bit of a structural problem in the minister’s portfolio,” he said.

Community groups have been frustrated by the government’s failure to legislate new national parks.Credit: Sandy Scheltema

“I think sometimes he doesn’t know which portfolio he’s representing. Environment should be about the environment; outdoor recreation, tourism and major events are something else.”

‘Locking up’ public land

Parks Victoria has been vocally criticised by recreational groups and the Murdoch press over recent months for “locking up” state forests and public land.

An article in The Weekly Times last month, for example, criticised it and the state government for putting a “padlock” on public forests, and closing 21 tracks in the Chiltern-Mount Pilot National Park.

Parks Victoria closed 21 trails through Chiltern-Mount Pilot National Park over safety concerns.Credit: Parks Victoria

Dimopoulos moved to assure constituents on Twitter that the government would act quickly to reopen popular camping and prospecting areas like Reedy Creek, including “upgrading and improving the safety of the informal track network”.

That “informal track network”, Parks Victoria district manager Jessica Reid told the paper, had been formed illegally.

“These are not part of Parks Victoria’s formal track network and are not maintained. They are deeply rutted, unsafe, and affecting environmental values in the area.”

No matter, the minister said on X: “These tracks will be reopened as soon as possible.”

Field & Game Australia has been campaigning for years for more freedom for recreational hunters to access state forests and public land.

Chief executive Lucas Cooke welcomed the government’s review of Parks Victoria, saying his members were frustrated by the “lock it and leave it” approach they believe has come to define the agency.

“It’s a good thing. It’s an opportunity to have a good look at [the organisation].”

Forests campaigner Sarah Rees said: “We haven’t had new parks for Melbourne since 1998, and we’ve had a population increase the size of Adelaide since that time.”

“With the Coalition a likely victor in the next state election, it’s critical that Labor doesn’t make it easy for them to commence logging our parks”.

A Resolve Political Monitor poll, conducted exclusively for The Age last month, showed Opposition Leader John Pesutto had, for the first time, overtaken Allan as preferred premier among voters. It also showed the Liberals and Nationals maintaining a 10-point lead on primary votes.

A Liberal Party state council meeting in July passed a motion calling on the parliamentary Liberal Party to reinstate the native hardwood forestry industry should it win office at the next election, describing its abolition by Labor as “virtue-signalling on steroids”.

Meanwhile, Parks Victoria’s review will take place amid widely anticipated (although not confirmed by the agency) cuts to services, including rabbit and fox control, and rubbish collection.

Invasive Species Council advocacy director Jack Gough described the cuts as scandalous and said they reflected an “underfunded, understaffed and overstretched workforce”.

Ruchel, of the Victorian National Parks Association, concurred. “It’s hard to see how major cuts to funding for Parks Victoria combined with an out-of-the-blue review meets community expectations,” he said.

“We are deeply concerned this is a Trojan horse for dismantling hard-won nature protections.”

Get to the heart of what’s happening with climate change and the environment. Sign up for our fortnightly Environment newsletter.