Following the announcement by Premier Barry O’Farrell that the Game Council was to be disbanded,  Mr McFarland saw no reason to hold his tongue anymore.

“I have done exactly what I have been told right up until midnight last night,” he said.

On Thursday the Premier annouced the council would be disbanded after he released the highly critical findings of the Dunn Inquiry into the Game Council. 

In January, police launched an investigation into Mr McFarland over claims he and a colleague crossed out of a national park and on to private property and killed a goat near Mount Hope.

Mr McFarland and his colleague face Cobar Court next week charged with hunting without permission, firing a firearm into enclosed land and possessing a prohibited weapon in a nature reserve.

The charges were laid after the Premier announced amateur hunting would be allowed in national parks, which sparked public outcry from the National Parks Association.

Mr McFarland, who was acting CEO of the Game Council at the time he was suspended, but not at the time of the alleged incident on December 28, said he was ordered by Game Council management to compile a report detailing his version of events.

He expected the report to be handed to Primary Industries Minister Katrina Hodgkinson and the police, however he believes that did not happened. 

“I feel betrayed by management generally,” he said.

Mr McFarland said he wrote the report in January, providing emails and photographs detailing what he was doing in the Cobar area on December 28.

He has maintained his innocence throughout the investigation. 

Mr McFarland’s solicitor David King Christopher said his client was being made a political scapegoat after the public backlash about hunting in national parks.

“My client now faces criminal charges and his life is in tatters because of an organisation that has no governance framework, no strategic planning and which lacked skills tools and resources,” he said.

“We could have told the Minister of these issues without the need for an inquiry.”

Mr McFarland said he obeyed instructions from the government since being suspended and had no intention of using his report without the minster’s permission, however, following the Dunn Inquiry and the disbanding of the council he said his solicitor should be allowed to use his report in representations to police. 

“I can’t see how they could refuse in fairness,” he said.

nicole.kuter@fairfaxmedia.com.au