Kelly O'Dwyer (Higgins, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am delighted to be speaking on the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Green Army Programme) Bill 2014 tonight. And I think it is very fitting that in this budget week, where we are focused on the economic future of all Australians, that we also speak about the environmental future that we are going to leave to the next generation as well—the legacy we will leave for them.

Like so many of my constituents in Higgins, I have a great passion for our local environment. In the heart of my electorate of Higgins I have the great Yarra River. This not only is at the heart of my local community but is really at the heart of the Victorian community as well. The Yarra River is a wonderful community asset; it is shared by all members of the community—whether they be rowers or people enjoying a barbeque during the summer months, walkers or slow joggers like myself, or even bike riders along the bike path. It is that wonderful community asset that can be shared by all. But it is an asset that we need to make sure we preserve, and we need to be very active in our preservation of such assets. I am fortunate to have been taken down the Yarra River a number of times by Ian Penrose, the Yarra riverkeeper. During that journey I have witnessed firsthand pollution and the erosion of banks when vegetation has been removed. I have also witnessed the rubbish that has been dumped in our Yarra River. Further up the Yarra, in Gardiners Creek, I have participated on Clean Up Australia Day, in cleaning up that beautiful pristine environment—which was not quite so pristine on the day that I filled two garbage bags with rubbish.

With these assets and with the pollution, the environmental degradation that occurs, and the rubbish that is strewn about, we need to make sure that we clean it up. In so doing, I commend the current work and the investment that has been put in by one of my local councils, the City of Stonnington Council, under the Mayor, Adrian Stubbs, and the CEO, Warren Roberts, who have created wetland environments and undertaken some very serious work on the Yarra River in preserving that wonderful legacy. But the task is a very, very big one, and it is an ongoing one. And it is a bigger one than councils alone need to deal with. It is not just something that we as volunteers need to be able to deal with; it is something that I think we as a community need to take on. And when you consider that we have a very, very high youth unemployment rate—much higher than we would hope in a country such as ours—and you consider the importance of skilling up our young people for the future, we can have a marrying of our environmental initiatives in preserving our local environment and protecting it, and also skilling up young Australians. So I see the Green Army as being able to complement the good work that is already being done in our local communities and strengthening that work through being able to encourage young people to develop new skills while also indulging their love of their local community and local environment—being able to make a practical difference.

The Green Army is one of our key election commitments, and it will be Australia's largest-ever team supporting environmental action across the country, building to 15,000 young Australians by 2018. The Green Army will provide opportunities for young people across Australia to gain training and experience in environmental and Heritage conservation fields and also to explore careers in conservation management while participating in projects that generate real benefits for the environment locally. Under the program, participants will be paid an allowance that is generally higher than the rate of Newstart and Youth Allowance. And there are protections under the existing relevant state and territory legislation to help ensure the safety of all participants involved. Participants will receive accredited training during their 26 weeks of being involved in a Green Army project, which I think is something that will stand them in very good stead for the things they might do in the future, and the future opportunities that might open up to them as a result of that training.

Recently I was fortunate to have the minister attend my electorate to announce the opening of the project proposals for the Green Army. The applications for the project proposals opened in April and are closing in May, with projects commencing rollout from July 2014. In my electorate of Higgins there is going to be a very specific project around the Yarra River and around Gardiners Creek in making sure we can revitalise those natural landmarks by planting native vegetation along the riverbank, cleaning up the garbage, and complementing—as I said before—the good work that is currently being undertaken by the Stonnington Council, the Yarra Riverkeeper Association and volunteer groups further up the Yarra River in Gardiners Creek, such as Friends of Gardiners Creek.

I am very excited that these two projects have already been approved for Higgins. I am very much looking forward to working with community groups and local government to facilitate any additional projects that will help improve our local environment as well. In addition, it is also timely to mention that in the current budget there is provision for even more work to be done on environmental protection in Victoria. There is a specific initiative in the budget of $1 million for the Yarra River, to make sure it can be preserved for future generations. This money will go to a good cause—to again enhance our local environment and to make sure that the good work done by Yarra Riverkeepers along the river is there for the benefit of all Victorians and, in effect, for all Australians.

We build on the very strong foundations that we have in the Liberal Party and in the coalition of strong, practical environmental action. As people who have been taking an interest in the Green Army Program would be aware, the program builds on the history of the Green Corps program, which saw a number of Australians plant more than 14 million trees, clean up their local environment and learn good skills in that process.

The good work going on in the Yarra River is not just particular to my electorate of Higgins. The Yarra River runs through a number of electorates, including the seat of Melbourne in Victoria. It is disappointing for me to hear that that the Green Army initiatives will not be supported by the Greens in this House. One would think those practical initiatives—to preserve our environmental heritage for future generations and to improve our local environment—would be at the very heart of what the Greens stand for; yet it is my understanding that they will be blocking and will not support such practical initiatives. I can only register my strong disappointment and, quite frankly, my surprise that they would not come on board with something that will clearly be of benefit to everyone here.

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