NSW Labor promises to create ‘great koala national park’ if it wins power

Environment groups have long called for the koala park, which would link 140,000 hectares of existing national parks with 170,000 hectares of state forest. Photograph: Martin Harvey/Getty Images

The New South Wales Labor party will establish a new national park stretching from Kempsey to Coffs Harbour in a bid to save the state’s endangered koala population.

On Thursday the opposition leader, Chris Minns, will announce that the party will re-commit to establishing the “great koala national park” on the NSW north coast, which could see an area of about 300,000 hectares of key habitat for the native species protected from logging.