{"id":78657,"date":"2026-08-23T23:49:32","date_gmt":"2026-08-23T23:49:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/78657\/"},"modified":"2026-08-23T23:49:32","modified_gmt":"2026-08-23T23:49:32","slug":"lily-hoopers-family-calls-for-bush-safety-law-after-tragic-hiking-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/78657\/","title":{"rendered":"Lily Hooper’s family calls for bush safety law after tragic hiking death"},"content":{"rendered":"

The family of teenager Lily Hooper are calling for better bush safety education and emergency tracking devices for young people venturing into the bush, as they process the devastating loss of their daughter<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Lily Hooper, 18, set off on a trail in the Nattai National Park on August 12 for what should have been a day hike. Her body was found on Thursday after a gruelling eight-day search.<\/p>\n

WATCH THE VIDEO ABOVE: Family calls for Lily\u2019s Law after bushwalking tragedy<\/p>\n

Know the news with the 7NEWS app: Download today Arrow<\/a><\/p>\n

Her father Jim Hooper and his wife Kirrily are now pushing for what they\u2019re calling \u201cLily\u2019s Law\u201d \u2014 a legacy focused on bush safety awareness.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe think it\u2019d be good if there was a legacy that was left like a Skye\u2019s Law, Jack\u2019s Law … Lily\u2019s Law,\u201d Jim said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd that\u2019s about the awareness of going out in the bush with EPIRBs, tracker devices, Garmin, Navman type devices.\u201d<\/p>\n

The grieving father walked the track his daughter took and believes he has some idea what may have happened.<\/p>\n

\u201cI did walk the track, it\u2019s a hectic track, I was surprised she took it on. I think it was on dark and she got disorientated and she headed in a direction that she didn\u2019t walk in on,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cLike I said the bush can swallow you up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jim said he had previously tried to discuss bush safety with his daughter, but like many teenagers, she was confident in her abilities.<\/p>\n

\u201cI locked horns with her about this sort of stuff which saddens me in a lot of ways because there was a lot of you know \u2018what do you know dad\u2019 stuff and you know kids think they know better,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Despite the tragic outcome, the family has found some solace in having closure.<\/p>\n

\u201cOut of the three scenarios of getting her back alive, getting her back [deceased] and then not getting her back we got the middle one,\u201d Jim said.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot ideal but at least we got her back.\u201d<\/p>\n

The family is also pleading with NSW<\/a> Premier Chris Minns<\/a> to honour Lily, who worked as a tour guide at BridgeClimb, by flying the flag at half-mast.<\/p>\n

Deputy Premier Prue Car said the government would be working with the family on their request.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think everyone\u2019s heart has broken watching what\u2019s happened over the past week,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll be working with the family and we\u2019ll have something to say about that shortly.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

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2 min read<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

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<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The family of teenager Lily Hooper are calling for better bush safety education and emergency tracking devices for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":78658,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[22,21,1792,1953,152],"class_list":["post-78657","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-austrlia","tag-disaster-and-emergency","tag-missing-person","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78657","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78657"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78657\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78658"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}