Former Alone Australia contestant ‘Outback Mike’ Michael Atkinson is lobbying against a NSW National Parks proposal to increase camping prices, claiming it will make camping inaccessible. Video by Michael Atkinson
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00:00I prefer to have a sunny disposition, but it is pretty hard to not get a little bit upset when you look at the proposal for New South Wales National Parks camping fee increases.
00:10For example, Threadbow Diggings, which is now $6 a night, is going to go up to $54 a night. That is a nine times increase.
00:19They're saying they're doing this in response to ghost bookings. Well, you could just get rid of the booking system like it was like before COVID for most of the campgrounds.
00:26And the other reason they're saying is because 49% extra people are visiting the parks, but nowhere in their proposal did they consider increasing the amount of campsites by 49%, therefore medium demand.
00:38This kind of price increase is going to put a whole bunch of people out of reach of camping in New South Wales National Parks.
00:45If you don't have a lot of money, that should be the last thing that you can always do. Go camping on public land and enjoy yourself.
00:52That's just going to be out of reach for so many people now. What can we do about it?
00:57Well, we've got until the 25th of May to fill out an online survey and you can put your response in there.
01:02I'm going to suggest that they remove the booking system for all of the places that didn't have one before COVID and that they increase the amount of campsites in line with the amount of extra visitation and not increase fees.
01:14Because access to national parks for camping should be available to absolutely everybody and we should be encouraging people to get outdoors, not making it a middle class and above activity.