In 2016, Ron Land walked into his local MP's office with a rough sketch on a piece of paper. He put it on the desk and said that if the will and support were there to build what he had sketched out, the idea would save Port Stephens' koalas from extinction.
On Saturday, Mr Land held back tears as he opened a multimillion-dollar wing of the Port Stephens Koala Hospital, the centrepiece of which will help those saving the national treasures diagnose critical injuries and illnesses in the hours when it counts the most.
