I speak for residents and landowners in Wollondilly who are living with the unintended consequences of the Cumberland Plain Conservation Plan [CPCP]. Let me begin by making one thing clear: Protecting biodiversity and securing the future of threatened species are important responsibilities. The Cumberland Plain contains environmental values worthy of protection, and our growing communities need good environmental planning. But good conservation policy must also be fair, evidence based and workable for the people who already call those places home. For instance, in West Wilton, the conservation plan is not simply a map or a planning instrument. It concerns approximately 35 family homes as well as about 1,300 homes in Western Sydney, the land people have cared for and the future they believed they had secured.
The Government acknowledges that avoided land is subject to development restrictions and that approval may be required before vegetation is removed. Residents have told me they are worried about whether they can manage weeds, carry out pest and feral animal control, provide adequate bushfire protection, renovate or rebuild, and insure their property. They are concerned about continuing to use their rural properties as they have done for many years on avoided land. Imagine owning a home for decades, caring for the surrounding land, planting trees and restoring vegetation, only to discover that environmental mapping may now constrain what can be done around the very home you worked so hard to establish. Residents have raised concerns with me about broadscale mapping that they believe does not adequately reflect conditions on the ground.
Where homes, established rural improvements and their asset protection zones for bushfire protection or previously cleared areas are captured by conservation mapping, the Government should be prepared to undertake proper site-specific assessments and modify the maps at no cost to landowners. Landowners should not need to be town planning experts to discover the restrictions affecting their homes and rural properties. Information should be clear, accessible and provided directly to affected people. Residents deserve certainty. They deserve to understand the rules affecting their properties. They deserve a practical pathway to correct the mapping when site‑specific evidence demonstrates that a change is justified.
The CPCP was designed as a landscape-scale approach to accommodate housing and infrastructure while protecting Western Sydney's biodiversity. The objective is legitimate. But landscape-scale planning cannot become a substitute for understanding conditions on people's individual properties. I empathise with landowners who do not seek urban intensification, but they should not be financially burdened by the cost of engaging an ecologist to prepare a biodiversity conservation assessment report and be required to navigate the CPCP review process. To demonstrate the burdens of planning administration on concerned residents, the Government should establish a CPCP modification application process. The first modification package was publicly exhibited between November 2025 and January 2026, and the department is continuing that process in September 2026.
However, the same landowners can complete an application to modify biodiversity values mapping in the Biodiversity Conservation Act 2016 and receive a timely government response within six weeks, without providing a biodiversity conservation assessment report. The government portfolio was restructured, merging two teams responsible for biodiversity value mapping. This has caused the issue for some of my residents. If someone has a swimming pool and a bush grows next to it and they cut down that bush because a child could use it to climb over the fence to get into the pool, they are illegally clearing that particular part. If someone builds a fence and has been running goats or sheep or whatever on the land and they replace or repair that fence, they are acting illegally.
Overall, the Government should improve coordination between State biodiversity mapping, CPCP mapping, local planning controls and future rezoning processes so that landowners are not navigating overlapping and inconsistent regulatory systems. Conservation and community should not be opposing objectives. Many of these landowners have been conservationists themselves, maintaining the vegetation. The people of Wollondilly are not asking the Government to abandon environmental protection. They are asking for evidence, transparency, proportionality and fairness. We can protect the Cumberland Plain while protecting people's homes, livelihoods and confidence in the planning system. That is the balance I urge the Government to achieve.
https://youtu.be/ZdC8sVSdre4