NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service sites like this one in Geehi could soon cost up to $36 per night. Photo: Nicholas Ward.
A petition submitted to the NSW Environment Minister has called for camping in the state to be kept affordable as the government considers dramatically increasing fees.
The petition, which gathered more than 13,000 signatures, was submitted by filmmaker and influencer Michael Atkinson, also known as Outback Mike.
It urges the government to appropriately fund national parks, remove the booking system put in during COVID and increase campground numbers.
Mr Atkinson said the government was unfairly shifting costs on to average Australians.
“They need to fund national parks adequately, they don’t need to raise revenue from the public,” he said.
“It’s much fairer to take people’s money at tax time because it is means tested.”
The petition follows a NSW Government draft plan which proposes restructuring camping to a six-tier system with fees of $13 to $89 per night.
The consultation paper attracted intense interest, receiving 23,000 responses and criticism from several bush user groups and the NSW Nationals.
NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service recently installed a 56 km four-day walk in Kosciuszko National Park but no extra campgrounds were included in the works. Photo: Nicholas Ward.
Mr Atkinson provided his feedback during the consultation, but said the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) form was disingenuous.
“The questions they asked were leading questions,” he said.
“I’ve had people message me, very experienced in the area of survey creation, saying the survey questions were biased towards the result you want. I had an `ick’ feeling as I filled out the survey.”
He said NPWS had made it almost impossible to object to the booking systems, which were never subject to consultation.
The current booking system was introduced as a temporary COVID measure in 2022 before being quietly expanded.
Its extension was never publicly announced, even though NPWS dropped reference to COVID from its booking website in 2023 before removing signs in parks referring to it.
Many bush users including Mr Atkinson have complained they were never given a chance to object to the booking systems.
Since its implementation, the system has been plagued with complaints of ‘ghost bookings’ where users book out sites for weeks at a time, then don’t use them.
A major reason for the proposed NPWS fee tier system is to combat these ghost bookings. But Mr Atkinson has a simpler solution
“Get rid of the booking system for places that didn’t have one before COVID,” he said.
“[People] definitely will not be able to go camping for a week in a NSW national park and fork out more money than it costs to rent a three-bedroom house.
“It was only put there for an infectious disease that was four years ago. So I say just get rid of it.”
Mr Atkinson has been backed by the NSW Nationals.
MLC Scott Barrett, who sponsored the petition, said national parks were becoming increasingly restrictive.
“There are areas of land we do need to protect,” he said. “We need to look after that very tightly, but there are other areas we just need people to get out and enjoy.
“It’s everyone’s estate, and everyone should have access to it.”
The current NPWS proposal plans to bring back some free camping across the state, but only for tier one sites – those with no facilities.
Tier two sites – those with pit toilets – through to tier six sites – including hot showers – would charge users. These sites cover almost 90 per cent of campgrounds in the state.
NPWS says expanding its campground system is difficult due to environmental concerns. Photo: Nicholas Ward.
A NPWS spokesperson told Region 83 per cent of its survey respondents supported a booking system.
“In many cases, it is not practicable to expand existing campgrounds due to potential environmental risks, infrastructure limitations, costs, and impacts to the visitor experience,” the spokesperson said.
While the petition to call on more national park funding and remove the booking system missed the 20,000 benchmark needed to trigger a parliamentary debate, the Environment Minister is required to respond.
