The NSW Minister for Lands and Water, Niall Blair, on Tuesday said: "Tours like this in the Belanglo State Forest are sick and disrespectful. Anja Habschied, of Germany, was one of seven victims in the backpacker murders. "I will be making sure even if this business does try to apply for a permit, these tours will not be going ahead." NSW Premier Mike Baird said he was surprised to hear about the tour and described it as "horrendous". "It's completely and utterly outrageous," he said.

Fairfax Media on Monday approached Tourism Minister Stuart Ayres for comment, but he declined. The Belanglo tour was conducted on Saturday, July 11. Another had been scheduled for July 25. Sandra Auchterlonie – the grandmother of David Auchterlonie, who at 17 was lured into Belanglo State Forest on November 20, 2010, and tortured and killed with a double-sided axe – said she was disgusted by the tour concept. "It is a money-making tour at our expense," she said. "I can't stop people from running these ghost tours, but I think it's disgusting. They are taking advantage of our grief." Matthew Milat, the great nephew of serial backpacker murderer Ivan Milat, was jailed for Auchterlonie's murder, which he committed just weeks before his 18th birthday.

The new Goulburn Ghost Tour was billed as an extreme terror tour with tickets priced at $150 per person. The online promotion says, "Come with us to Belanglo where Ivan Milat buried the bodies of his victims." The chief executive officer of the Victims of Crime Assistance League NSW, Robyn Cotterell-Jones, said the Belanglo tour would impact on families of murder victims more widely. "It will be greeted with revulsion and disgust with people who would like a bit more respect for their own suffering," she said. "While human beings seem fascinated by the macabre and frightening, for the families of victims, the impact of the death of their loved ones is never ended. For them, to hear people are using places of such horror for their amusement and profit is obviously going to cause scars to be ripped open again." The head of the backpacker taskforce, Clive Small, said he could understand the concerns of the victims of crime group and public curiosity in the site.

"I can understand the public interest in the matter and in a sense the public curiosity that still exists," he said. "But it has to be dealt with sensitively to take into account the families of the victims and other murder victims who would be reminded of their pain." The manager of the Goulburn Ghost Tour, Louise Edwards, said the new tour was run with sensitivity. She said each of the Milat victims are named along with the dates they went missing. "Lots of people know about Ivan Milat, but not about the people he murdered," Ms Edwards said. "We wanted to remind people that the victims are real people. They are not just victims of Ivan Milat. They are more than that. "We don't want people to forget about them."