On 7 September 2025, NSW set the proposed 476,000-hectare boundary for the Great Koala National Park and halted native-forest logging within it (plantation harvesting continues), with formal gazettal slated for 2026.

A repost from 18 September 2025.

The national conversation on productivity has rightly focused on incentives for investment, innovation and skills. But an equally important lever is to stop pouring public money into activities that destroy value. A hard-nosed productivity agenda means winding back subsidies to sectors that chronically lose money – especially when they also impose large environmental and fiscal risks borne by taxpayers.

Australia’s native forest logging industry is a textbook case of capital misallocation. Over decades, taxpayers have bankrolled losses and bailouts: more than $1.3 billion in accumulated losses in Tasmania, with handouts exceeding $1.5 billion in Victoria and about $1 billion in New South Wales. The uncomfortable reality is that without substantial budget support, the industry would not persist. That is the opposite of productivity.

The indirect costs are even larger. Logged and regenerated forests burn at significantly greater severity than intact forests – a difference........

© Pearls and Irritations