What was the federal government thinking in appointing John Bradley the inaugural Chief Executive Officer of Australia’s first National Environmental Protection Agency?
This questionable appointment reinforces voters growing belief that the government is neither listening nor leading when it comes to the environment, ecosystems and endangered species. Those who care about these issues feel politically homeless, and the appointment of John Bradley clearly reinforces why.
Koala Alliance calls no confidence in the appointment of John Bradley.
The Federal Environment Minister Murray Watt said in his press release about the appointment, “Most recently, [John Bradley] led Victoria’s Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action and Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning for a period of eight years.”
Yes, for eight years Bradley led DEECA, the Victorian government department responsible for modernising the state’s environmental laws. Let’s take a quick look at the memorable impact of Bradley’s time in Victoria!
VicForests – State Owned Logging
You would need to be living on another planet to have missed the mess that was VicForests, the Victorian state-owned logging agency which official closed on June 30, 2024. VicForests’ logging operations came under the oversight (and I use that term very grudgingly) of DEECA.
Before its closure VicForests’ operations were crippled with court injunctions for not complying with the forest code and protecting endangered species habitat. At the time VicForests closure was announced it had 65 individual forest coupes subject to active supreme court injunctions, brought by community groups, spanning years.
By May 2023, Victoria’s then treasurer confirmed that, “the decision was made after receiving legal advice that the government could not legislate to prevent the regular legal disputes that VicForests had lost against conservation groups.”
Why did this mess drag on for so long under DEECA and John Bradley?
But wait, there’s more. As confirmed by the recent 4 Corners investigation – Timber Turmoil – the $1.5 billion package in funding, launched in 2023 to help the Victorian forestry industry transition away from native timber harvesting, included NO provisos on how most of it was to be spent.
Four Corners reported that the Victorian government approved arrangements enabling Australian Sustainable Hardwoods to secure access to Tasmanian native forest logs and that public funding has helped sustain businesses importing this timber.
As this was playing out, in parallel new legislation was introduced called the Victorian State Forest By-Products Framework, that would allow logging in Victoria to continue under another name. This framework allows loggers, transitioned from Vic Forests to a newly expanded Forest Fire Management Department to log trees for fire breaks (6,000 km across Victoria), tracks for fire access, mechanical fuel preparation work, removal of trees deemed hazardous and clean up after storms and other weather events.
The Victorian government found a way to log our forests with less scrutiny and far fewer protections for our wildlife.
Under this framework they can then sell the logs to timber mills and firewood companies. Forest Fire Management is part of DEECA.
So, native logging never ended in Victoria, it just became something else, with less transparency and public scrutiny.
The most cleared state in Australia continues to be logged as a result of a cunning ‘work around’ by state government.
During an extinction crisis, a time where Victoria could have led the way toward species recovery, regeneration of the land and climate adaptation, DEECA, the department led by John Bradley went in the opposite direction.
This would be ridiculous if it wasn’t so tragic.
And for this example alone, John Bradley should not have been considered a candidate for the National EPA role.
Victoria’s Environment, Biodiversity and Animal Cruelty Laws
DEECA leads (again, I use this word very lightly) Victoria’s environment and biodiversity frameworks, and shares jurisdiction over animal cruelty laws with the Department of Agriculture.
The Victorian government likes to project that it has a up-to-date biodiversity strategy – Biodiversity 2037 – released in 2017, around the start of Badley’s role as secretary. The objective of Biodiversity 2037 is halting biodiversity decline and improving ecosystem resilience.
What it fails to mention is that this strategy is reliant of 3 ancient state laws:
- The Wildlife Act 1975, which provides framework for members of the community wishing to control, possess, display, breed, trade-in or interact with wildlife. They also provide the framework for the rescue and rehabilitation of wildlife by authorised volunteers, wildlife shelters and foster carers.
- The Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act 1988, designed to protect, conserve, restore and enhance biodiversity.
- The Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act 1986, specifies the provisions for protection of all animals from cruelty and suffering
Let’s be clear here 1975 (51 years old), 1986 (40 years old) and 1988 (38 years old).
During his time in a leading role in the relevant departments John Bradley wasn’t able to influence the state government to modernise this ancient legislation.
What was he doing? It would appear that he was helping the state government to maintain the status quo, which may point to the reason he was seen as the ideal candidate by the Federal Albanese government.
What is the case is the status and situation for wildlife, ecosystems and the environment has never been so bad as it is now in Victoria.
Ongoing Koala Crisis in Victoria
Under John Bradley’s leadership, the koala crisis in south-west Victoria has gone from bad to worse. His department not only failed to address one of the biggest koala welfare crisis’s in the country but also invented new ways to cull populations legally, without any public scrutiny. The outdated koala population estimates by the Victorian government state that 47,000 koalas reside in plantations, just in the southwest of Victoria alone.
DEECA have made it a rule not to translocate koalas from plantations but at the same time has not put any conditions on harvesters to leave any trees permanently for these populations who now rely on plantations for survival.
This failure to protect koalas from habitat loss and likely death has now come to haunt John Bradley after a secret plan by DEECA to aerially shoot koalas in a national park become public resulting in DEECA now being taken to court over this unprecedented action. I’m not assuming to know why John resigned from his role only months after these shootings but it is worth noting.
Bradley had nine years to develop a solution for the bluegum industry and its detrimental impact on koalas, but the crisis remains unresolved. As a result, thousands of koalas are being displaced every month, dying from habitat loss and car strikes. This is one of Australia’s most serious animal welfare scandals, yet it receives little attention because much of it occurs on private land and with very little oversight from DEECA.
Under Bradley’s rule, DEECA has allowed this industry to largely self-regulate with very few conditions. This is an industry that sends profits offshore, often to secrecy jurisdictions; they certainly don’t like scrutiny.
And let’s not forget we are still waiting for the release of the $850,000 taxpayer funded report titled, The Status of Victoria’s Koala Population, which was supposed to be released in 2025. But where is it – why hasn’t it been published?
When did you know a government to hide a report with good outcomes? The fact that this report remains unpublished more than a year on has been called Victoria’s shameful secret.
The Victorian Koala Management Strategy is supposedly led and delivered by DEECA
All this has been supported by DEECA under Badley’s watch.
Budj Bim Koala Shootings
The Koala Alliance has released a report that links this crisis to the recent aerial shooting of over 1061 koalas in a national park.
If Koalas are lucky enough to survive the logging in a plantation, they will make it into state and national parks. Are they lucky though? Several plantations around Budj Bim had just been cleared when DEECA sent in helicopters to kill koalas, supposedly as a welfare response after a bushfire.
Worse bushfires had occurred at Budj Bim only 6 years earlier. Did they send shooters in then to kill koalas? Maybe. How would we know? The only reason we know about the last shooting is because they were caught out.
There are a few state and national parks in the southwest but koalas in those parks have not been safe either. The planned burns which are essentially bushfires occur often in these parks and there is little to no caution taken to protect the koalas.
As I witnessed in 2022 after a planned burn at Mount Richmond National Park, koalas are often incinerated in these burns. When I asked the local DEECA representatives who were involved with this burn, they told me they do a quick survey around the permitter of the park, note number of koalas then they use statistical modelling to then calculate how many more might be in the park. What is the value of that?
What do numbers matter when what you need to know is exact location of each koala to avoid hot ignition?
Two koalas were found incinerated close to edge of that park, and three others were euthanised from burns. I will never forget his comment because it made me realise how clueless these officers are and how little care or respect, they have for the lives of our native species. In justifying such a hot burn, the same officer got teary when speaking about the coastal wattle infested in the park. It was sobering to witness this. There were no tears for the koalas burnt to death.
Image by Friends of the Earth
Heath Checks
To control populations in state and national parks DEECA also invented a “health check” system that was in theory, a tool to measure koala health but in reality is a tool used to cull koalas without any public scrutiny.
Koala Health checks occur in National Parks and on islands like French Island regularly and on private land (Alcoa). Except for some reporting from Alcoa and occasionally from Parks on French Island, the death toll of these health checks is completely unaccounted for. You can’t find this information anywhere.
Speaking of culling wildlife, according to figures calculated by the Nature Knowledge Channel, “Since 2009, including 2025, the Victorian Government has issued 53,472 Authority to Control Wildlife Permits (ATCWs) for the lethal control of protected Australian wildlife, targeting 2,456,094 animals” 80 different species have been culled, including Fur seals, king parrots, Lapwings, Black Kite’s, Black Swans, Brolga’s, wombats, kangaroos, wallabies and many more.
Koalas are missing off this list because DEECA knows the public would never except culling of a species endangered in three other states. When koalas are culled under health checks, they don’t need to be reported. Another cunning strategy under Bradley.
Wildlife Emergency Support Network (WESN)
You can’t talk about all this without discussing WESN, yet another initiative whose good intentions seem to have been completely bastardised under John Bradley’s leadership at DEECA.
After the catastrophic Black Summer bushfires exposed major failures in Victoria’s ability to rescue and care for wildlife during disasters, reforms were introduced to ensure wildlife would receive immediate rescue and care in future wildlife emergencies. An estimated three billion animals across south-eastern Australia died in those bushfires and people from all around the world donated tens of millions of dollars for koala rescue, rehabilitation and habitat restoration, while hundreds of millions were donated to wildlife recovery efforts more broadly.
Where did that money go? It certainly didn’t go towards koala rescue or conservation in Victoria despite thousands of koalas being impacted by these fires.
The legislation that passed in the Victorian parliament 2021 was clear. Establish an independent, well-resourced emergency wildlife response unit led by people with genuine expertise in wildlife rescue and rehabilitation. This was never intended to be DEECA staff.
Instead, DEECA rolled out a program controlled by the department itself, run by a collection of bureaucrats alongside Zoos Victoria. The people with decades of hands-on experience rescuing and rehabilitating wildlife were included only on paper. As we saw during the most recent fire season in 2025/26, rescuers and carers were left waiting by the phone while animals waited for help. As just one rescuer said in a media interview, “The government put numerous rescuers, including me, through advanced bushfire rescue training several years ago but refused to call us up or let us in, choosing to rely on departmental staff who are renowned for euthanising everything”.
The Man Now Leading Australia’s National EPA
Who can say what is the worse stain on John Bradley’s tenure with DEECA, there are just so many.
Undoubtably for Koala Alliances it is his decision on the aerial shoot 1061 koalas in Budj Bim National Park. This unprecedented killing of native wildlife has never been used before (to our knowledge) and was supposed to be hidden from the public.
For other organisations, it may be the Cape Bridgewater Koala Massacre, where an unknown number of koalas were killed from illegal logging of a plantation and the only reason the public found out about this was because of a whistleblower who went to the media. It took days for DEECA to respond to this crisis and as it turned out, there had already been attempts to raise the alarm which were ignored by authorities and wildlife welfare orgs. The perpetrator avoided jail and got a slap on the wrist fine. Why? Because of Victoria’s ancient and useless laws, detailed earlier, that John Bradley appears to have shown no interest or ability in modernising.
As of 1 July 2026 the National EPA came into effect, with the governments website saying its mission is to:
- Make timely and streamlined assessments and project decisions, based on the evidence about their impact on the environment. Be consistent, impartial and guided by legislation.
- Ensure that impacts on Australia’s threatened species and their habitats are appropriately managed.
- Make sure individuals and businesses comply with national environmental laws such as those for hazardous waste disposal, wildlife trade and dumping at sea.
- Provide clear guidance and engage with businesses and stakeholders to help them understand and comply with the law.
- Take strong action – such as prosecutions, fines and environmental repair orders – when there’s deliberate breaches or serious environmental harm.
Koala Alliance sees no evidence that John Bradley had been able to do this for Victoria, so why should we feel confident he can do this for the whole of Australia.
I know that not many have confidence in Murray Watt given our EPBC Act is possibly weaker now than before, despite years of attempted reform following a scathing report by on the state of our environment.
John Bradley’s appointment probably doesn’t surprise many but for how long must we accept a government who rewards bureaucrats for doing such harm to our country, to our beautiful wildlife.
When will Australia wise up to the fact that these appointments are strategic, chosen to allow the status quo of destruction and cruelty in this country to continue. The Budj Bim aerial shooting of over 1,061 koalas was labelled a “success” by John Bradley in a recorded debate with Nick McGowan in 2026.
When someone considers slaughtering 1,061 koalas from helicopters as a successful mission, and has presided over the tragic pantomime that was VicForest, just how can they be considered the ‘ideal candidate’ for the top job in environmental protection in the country? The only answer seems to be their willingness to conform and maintain the status quo.
