Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment) Share this | Hansard source

it is great to see real environmental projects that are helping young people, helping the environment, providing skills, repairing wetlands, building boardwalks, helping sand dunes be recovered, taking care of threatened species and doing practical work on the ground.

If you want a sense of where these projects are at now, already we have hit the 100-project mark on the ground around the country. Over 500 have now been announced. These projects are around the country. If we look just around this chamber, we see seven projects in the electorate of Blair, three projects in the electorate of Brand, four in the electorate of Cunningham, four in Fremantle, five in Lalor and four in Maribyrnong, among others. So we would invite people from all sides of this chamber to champion young people, to support the skills, to support the environmental work that is occurring on the ground.

What is it that young people themselves are saying about the Green Army? Let me give you a quote from Jared Marsden of Mackay, from the Daily Mercury there:

"I couldn't spend the whole day in an office," he said.

"With this opportunity, I get to help the planet and learn practical skills at the same time."

Chris Hockey, of Tottenham:

"Really, being able to get some skills to take away put into farming for myself down the track on my block of land is the main thing I want to get out of it," he said.

…   …   …

"There is nothing better."

This is the approach and the experience that young people are having around the country. We are ahead of our target, Prime Minister. We said we would have 250 projects on the ground this year. I can inform the House that we are likely to exceed that. We will be ahead of time. We will be achieving more than we had said. What is most important is that you can help the country, you can help young people get skills and you can do it without having the environmental project disaster which we saw with pink batts and Green Loans. It is possible to have good environmental projects. That is what the Green Army is, and I would urge you all to support those in your local area.

See this speech in context