im opposed to this proposal on a number of levels. the first thing I am opposed to is the Weribee concept, because I feel it would compromise conservation, welfare, education, the precincts heritage, ARAZPA, everything. and there is my whole opposition to the corporate takeover of a public entity.
if VillageRoadshow proposed a new theme park, which I highly doubt would ever happen, then I would still oppose it if it was based upon animals AND it was in an area which would compromise existing State Zoos. for example, in Sydney, Melbourne, Perth or Adelaide. Turns out, yes I would oppose it. it makes no sense for State Governments to subsidise and invest heavily in zoos and then turn around and endorse developments which would threaten their viability.
Happily, the SWW vs Taronga situation has turned out OK. Taronga seems to be winning easily, and rightly so. But what would everyone say if VillageRoadshow opened up an African Safari Theme Park in Sydney which led to a steep decline in visitors to Taronga (in which the Govt has invested hundreds of millions of $) and also accelerated the decline in visitors to WPZ?
The same thing could occur in Victoria if this goes ahead. There are so many problems here, and as I said before, we resent the commercial focus of zoos. But its our State Government's policy's and economic rationalsisation that has backed them into this corner; where they have to pay their own way, educate, recreate, researchreate, conservate and scrape together money for in-situ conservation. should we be stretching them further and screwing their mandate up further by inserting commercial competetion into the market???