The park, modelled on China’s panda reserves which span one million hectares of bamboo forest, aims to protect the endangered local population and open up tourism possibilities along the NSW North Coast.

The proposal includes a promise to develop infrastructure for local and international “koala tourism” including a koala trail and possibly a visitor centre and koala hospital if Labor wins the March 28 election.

The proposed 315,000-hectare national park would stretch inland from Coffs Harbour, from the Macleay River near Kempsey to Woolgoolga.

It would protect the Bellingen-Nambucca-Macleay and the Coffs Harbour-Guy Fawkes koala meta-populations. It is estimated the area outlined for protection contains 4500 – or 20 per cent – of NSW's remaining koalas.

Mr Foley said koala numbers in NSW have plummeted in recent years and populations were under serious threat from habitat loss, disease, dog attacks and cars.

“We've lost about 90 per cent of our koala population since white settlement and that's largely been driven by land clearing,” he said.

“My view is that we've just got to act. If we're going to be fair dinkum about saving the koala in the wild, we have to protect the koala's habitat.”

These sentiments have been backed up by the Bellingen Environmental Centre’s Caroline Joseph.

Ms Joseph told the Courier-Sun: “BEC welcomes Luke Foley’s commitment to a Great Koala National Park.

“This is a real case of a politician reaching out to the community for ideas and endorsing those that have merit. Mr Foley is aware of the promises of former Labour premiers Neville Wran to protect rainforests and Bob Car to protect old growth forest and is now building on that legacy to propose Australia’s first World class national park for our iconic koalas.

“Because of his commitments to the economy and growing jobs, the BEC is confident that if a elected Mr Foley will also accept recommendations of local groups to establish a koala and native wildlife recovery centre and highway rest spot on the highway at Pine Creek and to fully resource the management, rehabilitation and ecotourism potential of the new parks,” Ms Joseph said.

“This is an opportunity to put in place sound infrastructure for ecotourism and potentially create hundreds of jobs to compensate for the decline in the regions native forest hardwood timber industry.”

However, Nationals candidate for Oxley Melinda Pavey said Labor’s plan to lock up swathes of the North Coast into another National Park could slash up to 3000 jobs and destroy regional economies, while doing nothing to help the koala population.

Ms Pavey said early estimates are that the buyout alone could cost the NSW Government tens of millions of dollars – funding that could be spent on local roads, jobs, health and education.

“Every Australian wants to ensure that koalas are protected and encouraged to breed – unfortunately Labor’s un-costed announcement will do nothing to achieve that,” Ms Pavey said.

“This is typical Labor – lock up land and throw money at a problem, rather than developing policy which actually addresses the underlying issues.

“Wildfire, chlamydia and wild dogs pose a larger threat to koalas – we need sensible discussion about how to address those issues, not half-baked thought bubbles to lock up yet more land and throw away the key.

“That’s why in government The Nationals have doubled the amount of hazard reduction that has been undertaken, and have invested in research and on-ground control of wild dogs.

“Labor’s policy of simply locking up land and throwing money at a problem hasn’t worked – they tried that for the 16 years leading up to 2011 and it hasn’t had the desired effect of increasing native species, particularly koalas.”

Ms Pavey said when Labor was last in power they converted millions of hectares of State forest to National Park, gutting our timber sector and heavily impacting North Coast towns like Kempsey, Taree, Wauchope, Walcha and Grafton.

“Labor’s approach would have a devastating impact on a number of timber mills in and around the Oxley electorate, at Dorrigo, Warrell Creek, Kempsey and Telegraph Point – and the hundreds of good, decent people employed at those mills,” Ms Pavey said.

“Timber harvesting is already excluded from areas where koalas live in State forests and the industry has a Koala Code of Practice which ensures a comprehensive approach for the effective management of koalas and their habitat.

“This ill thought out policy would be a killer blow for our towns, while doing nothing to help our precious koala population.”