Media Release 21st July, 2006 Exposed: Secret meeting to trade-off biodiversity The Planning Minister Frank Sartor is meeting secretly today with regional property developers, prompting alarm among conservationists that further areas of sensitive bushland are going to be traded away and destroyed. From 9:30 - 11am this morning, a small but rowdy group of activists will protest outside the Department of Planning office on Honeysuckle Drive against the possibility that the Planning Minister is coming to Newcastle to discuss environmentally destructive “trade-offs.” Government agencies are currently preparing or finalising both a Lower Hunter Regional Strategy and a Regional Conservation Plan, and conservationists are questioning why special arrangements are being made with powerful developers. Hunter Community Environment Centre spokesperson, Georgina Woods said, “The Government is planning to sell out biodiversity to the rich and powerful property industry. The Planning Minister has openly discussed his intention to concede to the outlandish and insatiable demands of the development industry for bushland, in exchange for gifts of land to the Government.” “The landowners that the Minister is meeting with today are substantial donors to the NSW Labor party: We think the public has a tight to know that the Minister is willing to bypass public consultation procedures to make deals with them. Exactly which areas of bushland is the Government going to sell-out? ” “We are calling on the government to reinstate the protection of all threatened species, communities, their habitats and the ecosystems that support them.”