Furphy: NSW can’t afford to establish the full Great Koala National Park.

Fact: NSW can afford to establish the full 315,000 hectare Great Koala National Park.

The Great Koala National Park (GKNP) is proposed to connect up to 176,000 hectares of state forests in the Mid North Coast region to 140,000 hectares of existing national parks. The NSW Government has committed to establishing a GKNP but has not yet publicly announced its boundaries nor stopped logging inside the park assessment area.

Job losses resulting from creating the full GKNP could be up to 220 direct jobs in native forest logging, and perhaps a similar number of indirect jobs flowing on from these losses (Pugh 2025). In comparison, the GKNP has the potential to generate a net increase of some 9,100 jobs over 15 years and increase economic output by approximately $1.2 billion (University of Newcastle 2021). This is a strong economic return for the GKNP.

The 176,000 hectares proposed for the GKNP comprises 21 per cent of the forest area available to be logged across the NSW north coast but has provided 37 per cent of the volume of logged products in recent years (Pugh 2025, drawing on Forestry Corporation of NSW biomaterial reports). Direct employment in public native forest logging is estimated at 590 on the north coast (NRC 2021). Thirty-seven per cent of this figure amounts to 218 direct jobs apportioned to the GKNP area (Pugh 2025).

The Blueprint Institute estimated that a structural adjustment package to end public native forest logging across the entire north coast would cost $215 million (Cross et al. 2023). Frontier Economics gave an estimate of $302 million for ending native forest logging in NSW (Frontier Economics 2022). These figures include redundancies, retraining, buying out wood supply agreements, funding for economic diversification and other costs.

Economic impact analysis by researchers from the University of Newcastle found that establishing the full GKNP would deliver significant economic gains for the Mid North Coast, increasing the economic output by $1.18 billion over 15 years (University of Newcastle 2021). This includes a net increase of some 9,135 jobs (due mainly to tourism) and takes into account job losses from native forest logging, structural adjustment costs and park establishment costs.
The NSW Government has conducted its own economic assessments for the GKNP but has not made the results public to date.

Further reading

North East Forest Alliance (2025). AWU claims of job losses are baseless scaremongering. Media release, 16 February. Available at: https://www.nefa.org.au.

University of Newcastle Australia (2021). Report: Australia’s first national park for koalas projected to generate $1.2 billion in economic output and 9,800+ jobs. University News, 2 February. Available at: https://www.newcastle.edu.au/newsroom. (Full report can be downloaded from here.)