I didn’t know what to expect when Bob Carr was to announce the Stockton Bight National Park.

His record on conservation in the Labor heartland is almost nil.

However, judging from the illustration in the Herald today his Park Promise looks more like a dogs breakfast. It is arranged to allow the mining of the 28klms of Stockton Bight from Stockton to Birubi Point! The next generation gets nothing.

It is a land use zoning proposal not a park.

There has been no attempt to make a compromise that would protect the natural values of the Bight for future generations.

The Stockton Bight outer sand barrier system of sand peaks and the unique reversing dunes backed by ancient forested dunes is a natural phenomenon of great botanical, geological, and heritage (both Aboriginal and military ) significance.

Stockton Bight is the Hunter Region’s most distinctive coastal vista that is still largely intact in the Year 2001. But it will be gone in 25 years if there is no real conservation effort.

Bob Carr’s promised Stockton Bight National Park is a fizzer and it would appear his government is not prepared to save and protect the core area of Stockton Bight.

The fight to protect the natural and geological values that are essential if we are to understand the evolution of hunter estuary and the changes of sea level and Quaternary geology is the challenge of the future.

I hope that the announcement will at least stimulate discussion and action for a real compromise on Bob’s promised Stockton Bight National Park in the Labor heartland.

The Nature Reserve/National Park proposal was published in "Hunter 2000" National Trust 1972 for the State Planning Authority to set out the essential to conservation initiatives that should be in place by the year 2000.

Conservation is going backwards into the new millennium and the opportunity to achieve Ecologically Sustainable Development is slipping away. There is no intergenerational equity in this dune deal proposal.

Yours sincerely,