Federal Treasury Secretary Ken Henry has come to the aid of marauding mobs of grey kangaroos accused of killing endangered earless dragons on the grasslands around Canberra.

In an angry battle between conservationist and animal rights groups, Dr Henry has been accused of unfairly preventing the culling of the kangaroos and thus sentencing defenceless earless dragons to death. Canberra has not seen a dispute like it since the infamous dispute a decade ago over whether the lives of legless lizards were more important than protecting the cuddly platypus.

The involvement of the nation’s most powerful public servant, according to a report in this morning’s Canberra Times, follows his assistance in preparing for the animal rights group Wildcare Queanbeyan a submission to the Department of Defence. Wildcare persuaded the Department to abandon plans to kill thousands of kangaroos on grassland sites it owns in the suburbs of Belconnen and Majura and to instead ship the surplus to Braidwood in NSW at a cost of $3,600 per animal.

The newly-formed Limestone Plains Group of conservationists is furious at the decision with consultant biologist Isobel Crawford claiming that Wildcare had only been successful because its report was co-written by Dr Henry “who sits on some committees with Defence Secretary Nick Warner”.

With that conspiracy theory now in the public arena, the Limestoners – which includes scientists from the CSIRO, the Australian National University and the University of Canberra, have gone public with their concern that transferring some kangaroos will not be sufficient to stop the degradation of the delicate grasslands that are the vital habitat of the earless dragons.

Dr Henry was not in the office this morning to comment on his lobbying activities.

Note: the plans years ago by ACT Electricity and Water Authority to drown the habitat of the legless lizards went ahead, thus saving the platypus from being poisoned when heavy rains forced raw sewage to be released into the river which was their home.