Hello Koala Lovers,

Thank goodness for 2022 and I am very excited to be back at work and it is time the Koala gained the recognition it deserves internationally because it could and should be a terrific voice for other species who have a problem being seen.

I am truly so tired of seeing the cruelty that is perpetrated on Koalas (and other creatures great and small) and you have probably seen there is now a court case in February about the Koalas that were killed in Victoria a couple of years ago. I will be very interested to see what happens and will watch closely.

I also thought that I would include messages from David Attenborough and as always, he talks about the elephant in the room – human population.

I have also included a fabulous video of Leonardo DiCaprio saying everything I would like to say. I did watch the movie Don’t Look Up and it is fabulous – and funny. It makes a mockery of the leaders who truly think that their personal profile is more important than impending doom. And like all black comedy hits right home.

Speaking of political leaders, Australia has an election soon and I am going to bang on to all of us to really consider who we vote for this year. The AKF has always prided itself on being completely non-political and I personally have little faith in one party being dominant. It allows corruption to occur and of course there is huge resistance to a federal oversight. But I do have tremendous faith in individuals and this year there are many independent candidates wanting to really make a difference. For anyone who thinks that the two-party system has a future, then look at America and what happened last year. It is time for people of conscience to be in our parliaments and the power brokers will have to live with it. Imagine what could happen if many of them were in that building talking truth to power.

Have you thought about who you will vote for? Please do and of course you can look at Act or Axe which shows the existing members in each of the seats that have or did have Koalas.

Act or Axe does not identify the candidates running in each electorate. But you could, please identify any candidate that you think will support a Koala Protection Act and feel free to identify them on our social media. We need to know who loves Koalas and wants a healthy future for them.

Happy New Year and let’s go!

Deborah