Darren Cheeseman (Corangamite, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry. Given it is Landcare Week this week, will the minister inform the House of the importance of Landcare to Australian communities and Australian farmers? How does this work relate to threatened species?

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Corangamite for his question. This week it is good to be able to celebrate the work of more than 100,000 Landcare volunteers in something in the order of 4½ thousand community groups around the nation. Three-quarters of all Australian farmers are involved in some way in Landcare, and these are the people who manage 70 per cent of our landscape.

This year also marks two decades since Landcare Australia began, originally under Minister Kerin and the late Peter Cook, and then followed on from 1990 by the then Minister for Agriculture, who is now the Minister for Trade, Simon Crean. It started as a partnership between the NFF and the Australian Conservation Foundation but now includes significant urban and peri-urban groups as well.

When the community cabinet met in Lyne I had the opportunity to visit the Landcare Community Nursery in Port Macquarie, where volunteers are replacing invasive species with local native plants to support a wildlife corridor and to repair flood damage. For some time MPs, including the member for Corangamite, have raised with me the need for a return to a small grants program within Landcare and within Caring for our Country. I am very pleased that earlier today the Minister for the Environment and I were able to announce $5 million to bring back a small grants program which will allow small grants between $5,000 and $20,000 for natural resource management groups, including Landcare groups, under Caring for our Country.

Members may be aware that yesterday was National Threatened Species Day, and much of the work of Caring for our Country goes to threatened species. Threatened species have descriptions such as vulnerable, critically endangered and extinct in the wild—all of which prompted me to think about the National Party! Something that has these listings is terribly hard to find, but last week four National Parties travelled together so they would be easier to find and vox pops were asked on this question in Lismore: is Warren Truss or Barnaby Joyce Leader of the Nationals? The first person who got it right—

Luke Hartsuyker (Cowper, National Party, Deputy Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. This cannot possibly be relevant to the question.

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The minister will relate his material to the question.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On the topic of whether or not they were regarded as endangered species, the final person on the vox pop got it right: Emma Adams from Tabulam said, ‘The Nationals’ leader is Warren Truss,’ and then added, ‘No, I don’t have any interest in politics, I just guessed it.’

Endangered species do have a higher recognition rating than the Leader of the Nationals, but compare that with the recognition throughout the country of Landcare in its logo, its volunteers and on our landscape.

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.