Kim Wilkie (Swan, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on another shameful act by this arrogant and out-of-touch government. Last week my office was contacted by Greening Australia concerning a Green Corps project in my electorate. Named ‘Queens Park: a right royal restoration’, the project is to commence on 13 November 2006. Among other things, the project will focus on conserving and enhancing the environment of the Maniana bushland and improving biodiversity of vegetation and fauna located in the Queens Park regional parks and recreation reserve.

I was informed that participants will take part in numerous activities, including walkway construction, revegetation and fence repair and installation, and identify and monitor flora and fauna. The project is being run in conjunction with the City of Canning, Peet Ltd and the Quattro joint venture partners, which includes the Western Australian state Labor government.

Greening Australia told my office there was to be an official launch and an opportunity for me to release a media statement. Less than an hour later the invitation was suddenly withdrawn by Greening Australia after telling me that they had been advised that, as Green Corps is a federal initiative, only Liberal members are to be advised of Green Corps projects and invited to the launches. Indeed, once it was identified that I was a Labor federal member, I was informed by Greening Australia that they had been told to contact ‘Liberal patron senators’ for Labor held electorates.

This is a disgraceful act by a sneaky, conniving government. This is taxpayers’ money being used to fund these projects—it is not coming out of Liberal Party coffers—and the Howard government should hang its head in shame at such a blatantly political manipulation of the system and of the efforts of the organisations and young people involved in these projects.

I also note that, on its website, Green Corps advises the project is in Canning. In actual fact it is in Swan. It cannot even get the electorates right. I intend to alert the partners involved in the Queens Park project as to what has been going on in this shabby little affair. This smacks of the same disgraceful actions of this government when it told schools in my electorate that only Liberal members could attend the dedication of flagpoles. Yet again the government is showing its true colours. It is shameful, it is a disgrace and it is high time these people realised that they work for the people of Australia. The people of Australia fund these projects, not the Liberal Party, and it is time the government started getting all members of parliament involved in these worthwhile initiatives.

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