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Under the current national environment law, which is in the process of being reformed, it is up to the developer to refer their project to the federal environment department - if they think it needs further assessment.

Mr Barrie and other local ecologists have been critical of the developer’s ecological assessments, especially the survey methods which were used.

“They’ve downplayed the presence of Koalas, the Wallum Sedge Frog, the South-eastern Glossy Black Cockatoo and the Mitchell’s rainforest snail,” he said.

“You can’t go out there a handful of times and say there will be no signifcant impact on the threatened species at the development site.

“I’m here every day –they’re not.”

Mr Barrie said he spent hours at Wallum, in almost complete silence, to hear (and record) the call of a male Wallum Sedge Frog and found a population group that would be impacted by the development that Australian Wetland Consultancy (AWC) did not, despite their professional surveys.

It is usually too diffcult to detect the Wallum Sedge Frog visually, due to their small size (2.5cm), incredible hiding ability and camoufage.

The males can be heard in breeding season if you’re there in the right weather, but the females make no call at all and are elusive even to experts, Mr Barrie said.

Threats to Wallum Sedge Frog populations are signifcant due to the large-scale destruction and damage to coastal wallum habitats.

Mr Barrie said lot of concerted effort has been put into the Save Wallum campaign and supporters weren’t simply going to accept that response from Minister Plibersek.

“These species are supposed to be protected under the law, the campaigners are there ready to uphold that, we’re not just going to step aside.”

He and the ever- growing number of supporters plan to continue to lobby the government and make sure the correct information is received and appropriate assessments and protections are enacted.

Clarence Property has strongly maintained it has been rigorous and thorough with all the required assessments.

Chief executive offcer Simon Kennedy said there has been no request from the federal environment department to refer Wallum for their assessment, nor any suggestion from them that there are Matters of National Environmental Signifcance (MNES) which require referral.

“Our ecologist team has prepared a highly detailed assessment of all possible matters and concluded that there are no requirements for referral,” Mr Kennedy said.

“This view has been corroborated by three further independent ecologist reviews of that assessment, all of which agreed with the fndings.

“The suggestion that numerous Matters of National Environmental Signifcance will be impacted by the development is a fabrication which is not supported by site observations of the area to be developed.”