Luke Howarth (Petrie, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to support the coalition's Social Security Legislation Amendment (Green Army Programme) Bill 2014. The coalition's Green Army policy will bring together the largest standing environmental workforce in the nation's history. It is a policy that will deliver real environmental and community benefits to the Petrie electorate. I am proud the coalition government is honouring its election commitment to bring the Green Army projects to life across Australia, but, more importantly, is delivering three important projects which I have been working on in my electorate.

These real and practical solutions, provided by the Green Army projects, will clean up and revegetate mangrove habitats, creek beds, river banks, and provide many other environmental conservation and remediation works. Nationwide, there are hundreds of Green Army projects, and I welcome these three to the Petrie electorate.

The coalition has a strong history of delivering for the environment. We all remember how successful the Howard government's Green Corps program was when it was established in the mid-nineties. The Howard government Green Corps program propagated and planted more than 14 million trees, erected over 8,000 kilometres of fences, eradicated 50,000 weeds and constructed upgrades in the form of 5,000 kilometres of walking tracks and boardwalks. The legislation before the House builds on those successful Green Corps programs and has developed a grass roots environmental action program that supports local heritage and environment conservation projects.

I am passionate about the Green Army projects and the benefits they will deliver for the electorate. This legislation, commencing in the new financial year, will provide young adults aged between 17 and 24 in the Petrie electorate with real on-the-job training. This is important for my electorate, given the high rate of youth unemployment that I inherited. These young people will be provided with an opportunity to gain hands-on, practical skills in carpentry, landscaping and horticulture, whilst at the same time protecting and improving the local environment.

These young people will not only gain these skills and valuable knowledge but be working as part of a group that fosters teamwork, local ownership and community spirit. They will be responsible for turning up for work each day and will learn about commitment and hard work—real transferrable work and life skills that employers are looking for in employees. A key element of the program is the provision of opportunities for vocationally orientated, accredited training delivered by a registered training organisation under the Australian Qualifications Framework. Training may be undertaken in areas such as work readiness, conservation and land management, heritage conservation, leadership, project and human resource management, and trades. I welcome the attention to detail this legislation provides.

The health and safety of Green Army participants will remain governed by relevant statutes, regulations, by-laws and requirements of the state and territory regulations in respect to workplace health and safety laws. Service providers will hold primary responsibility for the health and safety of Green Army teams while the teams undertake Green Army project activities.

Project sponsors have shared responsibility for providing a safe work environment for Green Army teams, including safe access to the site where work is being carried out. The Commonwealth will also implement a workplace health and safety audit scheme for the Green Army Program, which will involve independent workplace health and safety audits of service providers and projects. Insurance will be required to be held by all relevant parties. The Commonwealth will also take up personal accident and public or products liability insurance for Green Army participants. This is consistent with practice for the previous National Green Jobs Corps.

The bill also states that participants will not be considered workers or employees for the purpose of various common laws. So, if a person is receiving a social security pension and the person's partner is receiving a Green Army allowance, some or all of that allowance may not be counted as ordinary income in working out the person's rate of social security pension.

The Green Army projects are great for the Petrie electorate. I must say that I was terribly disappointed when I heard the member for Melbourne speak on this bill, because he made it quite clear that he would not be supporting it. I find it amazing that the member for Melbourne, who represents the Greens, is not willing to support the Green Army project. Whilst I do not have much in common with the Greens, I would have thought they would support this project. I think workers are well protected and I think it will give real practical benefits in each of our electorates. It is something that is definitely worth supporting.

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