parks victoria

Parks Victoria has repeatedly refused to release documents detailing the number of kangaroos killed on public land in Victoria. As part of their refusal, Parks Victoria claims that in an effort to locate these documents they would have to manually search each and every permit issued and that this was not possible because it would take too much time. DEWLP has also refused us access to these documents citing the same reasons, despite our request relating to a protected species being killed on public land by a government department, they claim they would have to manually search thousands of files individually to locate such permits issued to Parks Victoria, and that the search time would make this an impossible task, despite the fact they receive millions of tax payer dollars to maintain administration and IT systems, despite DEWLP’s claims to be transparent and despite a recent Auditor General’s inquiry condemning this department for their lack of transparency. We took our concerns to the Information Commissioner.

Parks Victoria was also asked for documents detailing the slaughter of hundreds of kangaroos inside the Bandicoot enclosure at Woodlands Historic Park near Melbourne Airport. As part of our FOI request, we asked for all documents relating to their slaughter in November 2018 including operational reports, numbers killed etc. According to Parks Victoria however no such documents exist, so these kangaroos were killed by a state government department, apparently without any documentation or accountability of the process whatsoever.

ASK continues to pressure government to be transparent about their treatment of our wildlife by requesting information under the Freedom of Information Act. These straight forward investigations have taken years due to the stone walling and obstruction by government departments when we attempt to search for the truth about the slaughter of our protected native wildlife on public land. We are very close to having information about Parks Victoria and how they have massacred tens of thousands of kangaroos in our public parks in Victoria, and have also recently requested documentation on the bush fire recovery efforts the Victorian government claims to have implemented after last summer’s catastrophic fires.

We fear that very few animals were rescued or even searched for and have also asked for evidence of food drop programs they committed to carry out. The government gets away with these cruel practices under the veil of secrecy and the least we can do is drag them out into the light and expose them for what they have done. Tens of millions of dollars were donated to the rescue of wildlife across Australia after the fires, but in NSW and Victoria government departments blocked volunteers from entering fire grounds leaving millions of animals to die in agony from starvation, dehydration and horrific burns. We are on a mission to find out what happened to those animals our government wouldn’t let us rescue.