Kosciuszko Wild Horse Heritage Repeal Bill 2025

I welcome our guests in the gallery. They have travelled a long way to listen to debate on the Kosciuszko Wild Horse Heritage Repeal Bill 2025. I am sure they will find it interesting. I recognise Mr Huang Zhen, vice-chairman of the Shanghai Municipal Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, and the delegation. Welcome to the Legislative Assembly. The member for Granville quoted from her contribution to debate on the 2018 bill, and I shall do the same. In 2018 I foreshadowed that this would not be our final debate about high-country brumbies. I quote from that speech, because it was amazing. I said:

It is highly likely that a future Labor or a Coalition government will review this issue, because this is not well-considered legislation.

It has fallen on my friend the good Independent member for Wagga Wagga to correct that egregious wrong, but I am very pleased that the Government, from the Premier down, is in full support of his bill. Seven years on, I maintain that the legislation that gave heritage status to the wild horses of Mount Kosciuszko was poorly considered. Indeed, the bill was promoted and passed wilfully and in defiance of all common sense. Without credible scientific or environmental evidence, the Kosciuszko Wild Horse Heritage Act elevated the protection of those horses—an invasive species—above, and at the expense of, native animals and plants in Kosciuszko National Park. It prioritised the myth about feral horses over the reality that they are an invasive species—and invasive species, by their very nature, devastate the environment.

Feral horses cause severe erosion, compact fragile soils, pollute wetlands and watercourses, degrade riparian systems, spread weeds, damage vegetation and compete with native animals for food and water. Reclaim Kosci reports that feral horses threaten 23 native plant species, 11 native animal species and four ecological communities in Kosciuszko National Park. It is unarguable that the horses are damaging the delicate alpine and subalpine environment of Kosciuszko National Park, and that their removal will improve the park's ecological health. Legislating their protection therefore set a dangerous and bizarre precedent which ignored evidence-based conservation and national park management. I appreciate there are different opinions on this issue and understand the strong emotional attachment to brumbies. They are majestic creatures which loom large in Australia's national identity, embodying freedom and resilience. Yet their undeniable beauty and cultural significance cannot justify the continued degradation of what is arguably our nation's most significant alpine and subalpine area.

The 2018 Act is underpinned by the idealistic hope that we can somehow balance the park's ecological health with the protection of the wild horses living there. But we must confront the reality that feral and native species cannot peacefully coexist in a symbiotic arrangement. The horse population is now vastly better managed than in years prior but continues to damage the environment. If we want to protect the unique natural environment and biodiversity of Kosciuszko National Park for generations to come in line with the very purpose of national parks, then the status quo cannot continue. We must do what is necessary and legislate to allow for the commonsense management of feral horses as an invasive species, like any other, using science as our guide rather than an artificial statutory protection.

As the member for Wagga Wagga has pointed out, effective population management should help keep the number of wild horses in check and avoid widespread culling, which I am sure none of us want to see. It is ridiculous to give protection to feral animals at all in a natural environment, let alone one as iconic and sensitive as the Snowies. We do not prioritise and protect any other feral species. Pigs, deer, foxes, cats, goats and the near-ubiquitous rabbit do not get the same treatment. We would not dream of legislating to protect them over, and to the detriment of, our native wildlife and environment. To do so would be absurd. Wild horses should not have been given that special treatment. I therefore strongly support the bill. I commend the member for Wagga Wagga for his leadership in presenting the petition calling for the repeal of the 2018 Act and introducing the bill.

The bill's broad support speaks volumes for its value and logic. As demonstrated by the petition debate, there is support across the political divide, as well as from peak bodies and advocacy organisations, including the Invasive Species Council, the Ecological Society of Australia, Reclaim Kosci consortium members, the Nature Conservation Council of NSW and the National Parks Association of NSW. The bill is a chance for this Parliament to correct the mistake codified in law by the 2018 Act and put science back at the heart of conservation management. Kosciuszko National Park is home to Australia's highest mountain, unique species and ecosystems from snow gum woodlands to alpine herb fields and moss beds found nowhere else on earth. The park and the native animals and plants that live there are some of our most valuable natural assets. We must do what we can to protect that incomparable natural heritage and secure the future of Kosciuszko National Park. For that reason, I commend the bill to the House.