A NSW parliamentary inquiry into the health and welfare of macropods (kangaroos, wallabies, and wallaroos) has been announced.

The decision received unanimous support from members of the NSW Legislative Council’s Planning and Environment committee today (March 15).

Deputy Chair of the committee, Upper House MP for the Animal Justice Party, Mark Pearson, has welcomed the decision as an “overdue, historic win”.

“This is a monumental victory for macropods in NSW and beyond,” Mr Pearson said.

“Finally, we can take a magnifying glass to the cruelty inherent to the commercial kangaroo industry and reveal just how bad things are: adult kangaroos shot and beheaded in the middle of the night, strung up on utes as their joeys are bludgeoned to death beside them.”

Mr Pearson has been campaigning for an end to the commercial slaughter of kangaroos for years.

“It’s the world’s largest commercial slaughter of land-based wildlife, yet it’s still such a secretive and largely unregulated industry,” he said.

As well as examining the commercial killing of kangaroos, the inquiry will investigate:

* the accuracy of population counts

* the non-commercial killing of kangaroos

* government policies around “culling”, including quotas, and licenses to kill

* current government policies relating to the killing of joeys

* the use of exclusion fencing
* threats to kangaroo habitat including land clearing, bushfires, climate change and drought

“Kangaroos have never been in more danger than they are right now, so while overdue, this inquiry has never been more appropriate,” Mr Pearson said.

“Not only have they faced extreme habitat destruction and loss of life from the Black Summer bushfires, kangaroos continue to be intentionally killed across NSW through the use of exclusion fencing as well as slaughter for “recreation” and agricultural purposes.”