Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to inform the House that students from Catherine McAuley in Westmead have been named ‘Sustainable Living Champions’ for their environmental work at their school. The Sustainable Living Challenge is run by the United Nations Environment Program and the University of New South Wales. It is the largest environmental program of its kind, involving over 20,000 students nationwide. At Catherine McAuley, 29 students from years 7 to 12 worked to regenerate the wetlands behind the school and establish the school’s composting system, worm farm and vegetable gardens. They have been identifying and removing weeds, replanting native species, and composting and gardening.

A remarkable number of the schools in my electorate are based beside creeks. It seems sometimes that there is a creek down the back of every school, oval and community centre. Most are overgrown and ignored, but, bit by bit, sections are rejuvenated thanks to the work of community volunteers and our local schools. Several schools have their own environmental programs to clean up and revegetate their own little bit of the waterways.

I visited the creek behind the Catherine McAuley school two years ago when their environmental work in the creek was in its infancy. I have to say, we got very muddy removing rubbish from the creek, which was in a sad state at the time. The main culprit was a very old lounge chair, which literally came apart as we tried to move it. In the end, we removed the disgusting mud-soaked foam rubber handful by handful. By the end you could not tell what colour our clothes were underneath all the mud, and I thank the school—two years late—for the loan of a tracksuit to get home in.

More important than the state of our clothes that day is that you would no longer recognise the creek from those early days. All the students, staff and parents who participated are to be congratulated. The school plans to continue the project next year with further planting and water conservation.

Congratulations also to the Sustainable Living Challenge, which encourages young people to explore sustainable living issues as part of their school experience. Twenty-nine students at Catherine McAuley and another 20,000 around the country have been doing just that: enhancing local biodiversity, reducing waste and enhancing soil and water quality—a genuine contribution to our current and future wellbeing and way of life. Once again, I thank the students of Catherine McAuley.