Coast should be insulted by koala park plan

If the Pilliga Forest can provide any lessons it is that the Coffs Harbour region can expect to lose more of its timber industry if Mr Foley's plans ever see daylight, but also possibly hurt the very thing it was meant to protect - the koalas.

It was reported in December last year that it is estimated there are fewer than 50 koalas remaining in the Pilliga.

This is a 75 per cent crash in the population since the previous survey of 1993.

Drought and climate change were suggested as causes, but one would suspect the massive bushfires which ripped through the region in 2006 and 2013 would also have hit the population and questions remain how poor management, especially leading into the devastating 2013 fires, contributed to these disasters.

North Coast locals fear the reduced management that typically is inherent with national parks will lead to the same issues in their backyard, and who can blame them?

Their timber industry is one of the best managed in the world.

This is an opportunity for the Nationals - for which the North Coast region is a heartland - to shore up support.

While they have expressed opposition to Mr Foley's plan, they can't stop there.

Mr Foley has basically sent a message that he's not concerned with the rural vote - at least along the North Coast - and is willing to trade regional interests to gain traction with green city voters.

This is increasingly a hybrid community where green interests, self-funded retirees and tree-changers are side-by-side with rural industries.

As the non-traditional type of rural voter increases in numbers along the North Coast, the cheap sell of such a policy is likely to appeal to not just the green Sydney votes, but also a growing pool of like-minded new arrivals (and a growing Green element) with limited allegiance to the region's industries.

This is despite it being a reminder that these city-based power brokers are one dimensional and removed from what makes the rest of the State tick.

The challenge for the Nats is to demonstrate empathy with their traditional base while also cultivating commonsense among the evolving demographics of the region.