It’s starting to feel like déjà vu for anyone who’s been camping the NSW coast for a few decades. Once again, National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) has cooked up a “trial” that quietly moves ordinary campers out of the picture, this time by letting private businesses lock in sites a full six months earlier than the public.
Under the plan, NPWS will hand commercial operators long-term licences at 23 campgrounds across 16 national parks. From Murramarang’s Depot Beach to Mimosa Rocks’ Picnic Point. These operators will be able to pre-book sites 12 months in advance to run “supported camping” packages with ready-made tents, caravans, gear hire, and even meal setups. The rest of us get to join the queue half a year later and hope there’s anything left.
The Great Accessibility Excuse
According to NPWS, the move is about “accessibility”, citing a survey saying 62% of adults are open to camping and 10% of those have never done it. Apparently, the solution is to let private businesses charge newcomers for a “turnkey camping experience.”
That’s not accessibility, that’s privatisation dressed up as inclusivity. If NPWS genuinely wants to help first-timers, it could run gear-loan programs, ranger-led intro weekends, or build new campgrounds specifically for supported camping. Instead, it’s slicing up existing public sites and reserving them for those who can afford to pay extra.
Public Land, Private Profit
Let’s call it what it is: a quiet handover of public land to commercial interests. No one knows how many sites are being leased, how pricing will be regulated, or what accountability exists when profit becomes the priority. Once operators are embedded, do you really think NPWS will pull them out if it means losing revenue?
We’ve seen this playbook before, creeping commercialisation under the guise of “enhancing visitor experience.” The problem is, once you monetise access, you change the very thing people come for. These campgrounds aren’t boutique retreats; they’re part of the public commons, the last places you can still roll out a swag by the ocean without taking out a loan.
Equity? Don’t Bet On It
This trial creates a two-tier system, one for those with the means to book a catered campsite, another for everyone else trying to squeeze into whatever’s left. It’s tone-deaf, especially after NPWS already hiked camping fees earlier this year.
If they truly cared about “access,” they’d be expanding capacity, not clawing it back. Build new sites. Fix the ones that have fallen into disrepair. Make camping affordable again instead of selling it as a lifestyle product.
The Bottom Line
This is a public system sliding into a user-pays theme park model. The wilderness that belongs to every Australian is being sliced into commercial parcels, all while National Parks calls it progress. The agency might think it’s helping newbies, but to those who’ve spent generations exploring these parks, it just feels like another step toward locking ordinary people out.
If NPWS really wants more people to experience the bush, it should start by keeping it public, keeping it simple, and keeping it fair, not handing it over to the highest bidder with a business plan. Because once public land goes commercial, it rarely comes back.
