Teresa Gambaro (Brisbane, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to speak to the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Green Army Programme) Bill 2014 today. It is an example of the Abbott government delivering on yet another key election commitment through legislation to establish the Green Army. The Green Army Program is a key plank in the government's cleaner environment plan under the clean land pillar. The Green Army is a voluntary program that encourages hands-on, practical, grassroots action to support local environment and heritage conservation projects in Australia. It is an opportunity for young people in my electorate of Brisbane aged between 17 and 24 to gain very valuable training experience in environmental and heritage conservation fields and to explore careers further in the conservation management area.

In my electorate of Brisbane the Abbott government has committed to two Green Army projects on the Brisbane north side. Enoggera Creek, Ithaca Creek and Kedron Brook Creek will benefit from the two Green Army teams improving the local environment and amenity through practical and real action. I want to provide some further detail on one of the areas of my electorate that will benefit from this work being done by the Green Army. I am specifically referring to Kedron Brook, which stretches a total of 29 kilometres, starting at the D'Aguilar National Park and ending in the Schulz Canal in Moreton Bay. The creek is a very valuable part of the north side of Brisbane. Many families walk alongside the many pathways and bikeways on a regular basis. I want to commend the work that has been done by the Brisbane City Council as well. The environment along the creek has some of the last remaining remnants of riparian rainforest and includes the remnants of the locally uncommon flood gum Eucalyptus grandis along the Kedron Brook floodway. Mangroves and exotic grasses are the dominant vegetation. It is these wonderful natural gems, not just in my electorate but all over Australia, that this bill will protect.

Once in place the Green Army teams will focus on revegetation, installing ecological signage, upgrading walkways and cycling paths, mapping wildlife, planting trees, and installing measures to minimise flooding and reduce its impact on the local environment. This is a very real and practical way to make a difference to our environment and to complement our direct action approach to climate change. I am currently working with the Minister for the Environment in having this project rolled out as soon as possible.

The Green Army Program will provide benefits to both the environment and the community through projects such as restoring and protecting habitat, weeding, planting, cleaning up creeks and rivers, and restoring cultural heritage places. In addition to all of the great environmental work that will be done, the Green Army participants will be paid an allowance and gain valuable experience in conservation management, teamwork, discipline and waking up every morning and being committed to doing the job that needs to be done. The Australian government will shortly be undertaking a tender process for service providers who will engage the Green Army teams and supervisors and manage the activities to ensure that projects are completed safely, are reported regularly on and are on time. Projects may be carried out across urban, and regional and remote Australia, or on public land, Indigenous-held land or private land where there is a clear community, environmental and heritage benefit.

The Green Army will become Australia's largest ever environmental workforce, building to 15,000 participants by 2018 and capable of delivering real results. Those real results will be 1,500 on-the-ground environmental projects. It should be noted that this bill builds on the very strong history the coalition has in delivering for the environment. In particular it will build on the Howard government's successful Green Corps program, which was established in 1996. I saw the evidence of that and what a huge impact it made not just to the environment but to the lives of many people who participated and who then went further and continued their studies in this area or went on to technical and training education or to university education.

Over the life of the Green Corps program, participants delivered the following outcomes: they propagated and planted more than 14 million trees, they erected more than 8,000 kilometres of fencing, they cleared more than 50,000 hectares of weeds and they constructed or maintained more than 5,000 kilometres of walking track or boardwalks.

The Abbott government's approach can be contrasted quite starkly with those on the other side. Under Labor's watch, and solely on the basis of small-minded political reasons, the Howard government's Green Corps program was torn apart, was rebadged and it failed to improve the environment. Then it was terminated in 2012. Young people no longer had the opportunity to gain practical skills and to improve their local environment. But then again, no-one really should have been surprised. After all, Labor's approach to the environment is to hit families, businesses and the economy with a carbon tax. The carbon tax is an attack on the entire Australian economy. What is worse is that it does not even work. Despite a $7.6 billion tax, emissions for the first 12 months barely changed by 0.1 per cent.

The Abbott government will provide $300 million over four years, and a further $222 million in 2017-18 and $289.2 million in 2018-19 to establish the Green Army. The measure was announced in the 2013-14 MYEFO. The request for tender will be released shortly. The request for tender will be open for tender applications for at least four weeks. The Australian government will be running sessions for potential tenderers, and details of these sessions will be provided as part of the RFT.

The key components to the program will be that service providers will be contracted by the Australian government to engage the Green Army teams, deliver training and wage payments, manage activities to ensure projects are completed and report regularly on progress. There will be project sponsors, and they will be organisations such as local councils, community groups or natural resource management organisations that will develop project proposals. The sponsors will submit proposals to the Australian government through an application round. They will be assessed, and recommendations will be made to the Minister for the Environment for successful projects in each round.

Then, of course, there are the wonderful participants themselves. The Green Army Program will target participants aged between 17 and 24. Participants may be Indigenous people, school leavers, gap-year students, graduates and the unemployed. The program in future years will expand to people of all ages.

Unlike previous programs that were rushed through with unholy haste by the previous Labor government, the work, health and safety of Green Army participants is of particular importance to the Abbott government. The Department of the Environment will work with the service providers on an agreed risk-management framework for the delivery of this project. They will be informed by the experience of the Department of Employment and external expertise relating to work, health and safety issues.

Service providers will be required to work with the project sponsors on risk plans for each individual project. They will regularly report to the Australian government on the management of participants and project delivery, and audit and compliance schemes will manage any contractual breaches.

In addition to the on-the-job training, a key element of the program is the provision of opportunities for vocationally-oriented accredited training delivered by registered training organisations under the Australian Qualifications Framework. Training may be undertaken in areas such as work readiness, conservation, land management, heritage conservation, leadership, project and human resource management and trades. As such, on-the-job training activities need not be exclusively outdoors. The service providers will be responsible for ensuring that the training satisfies the requirements under the Australian Qualifications Framework in a format that best meets the need of each of the participants.

An individual training plan will be negotiated with each participant. Participants will be given an opportunity to undertake training for a certificate I or certificate II qualification or nationally endorsed skill sets.

Training in first aid and work, health and safety must all be completed by the participants prior to the commencement of Green Army activities. The participants without these basic training requirements must not commence project activities until they complete the relevant training.

In terms of funding that will be provided to the project sponsors proposing Green Army projects, the Green Army Program provides costs to support the Green Army teams that will be undertaking the project activities. The particular sponsors will be expected to provide specific equipment, materials and expertise to deliver the Green Army projects. No cash funding will be provided to the project sponsors. It is really important to note that the Green Army Program is an environmental programme and not considered an employment program. The engagement of a participant in a Green Army team for 20-26 weeks is not considered full-time employment. It is a voluntary opt-in program where participants will receive work-like experience and will be paid an allowance that is higher than income support, such as youth allowance or Newstart allowance.

The approach of not paying superannuation is consistent with the previous approach used for the Green Corps programs. It is consistent with the approach applied for income-support recipients undertaking existing approved programs of work activities, such as the Work for the Dole and the Remote Jobs and Communities Program.

The Green Army Program will be considered an approved program of work of participants who elect to stay on income support. Minister Hunt is to be congratulated on this bill. He has a big job unravelling the mess left behind by six years of Labor in office, but he has hit the ground running and this bill is ample proof of his application to the task.

I look forward to seeing the wonderful benefits of the Green Army projects he has approved for my electorate. (Time expired)

See this speech in context