Natasha Griggs (Solomon, Country Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise this morning to advise the House of a new awareness program I launched recently in my electorate. The Griggsy's Green Thumb Tropical Garden Safety Awareness Program involves working with primary schools and preschools in my electorate to educate students on the importance of tropical garden safety and environmental sustainability. This is a practical environmental approach, unlike Labor's carbon tax.

I am delighted that Estelle Cornell, owner of Allora Gardens Nursery and the Northern Territory Telstra Business Woman of the Year, has teamed up with me on this very important program. For every tropical tree or plant I buy for the school, Estelle kindly donates one to them as well. She also joins me visiting the schools where we educate the students about the trees and plants, where they should plant them, what type of fertiliser to use, when to water them et cetera. We also oversee the planting of the trees and plants. The students just love it and are so enthusiastic.

Gardening in the tropics has potential health risks, as I have talked about in this place before. I learnt that earlier this year with my husband, Paul, a keen gardener, contracting the potentially fatal bacterial disease melioidosis or, as it is known locally in the Territory, Nightcliff gardeners disease. It is also known as Whitmore's disease or paddy-field disease. Disturbingly, this year alone 97 Territorians have contracted the disease. Sadly, the fatality rate each year is around 10 per cent of those that contract the disease. I am lucky that my husband was not in the risk category for the disease, which he caught be being scratched by a piece of fencing wire which had been lying on soil in our yard that was contaminated with melioidosis. He is on the road to recovery. It has been a long time coming—about six months—and he is still getting there.

My Griggsy's green thumb program has been at the Larrakeyah Primary School, with principal Graham Chadwick very keen to be involved in the program. A big thankyou to Shelley Ferguson, who is a passionate educator and has excellent gardening skills. It was wonderful that Kelly Packer's year 4-5 class could be involved in the pilot program. The very keen enthusiastic students included Chelsea Abraham, Lachlan Anderson, Joshua Bentes, Alex Bishop, Kutura Buwurr, Evelyn Carapetis, Nadya Dravitski, Isaac Drummon, Jose Feliciano, Amy Ferguson, Liam Franklin, Bradley Guwayin, Jamie Hannon, Kemal Kindel, Jed Kofoed, Blake Lambert, Keith Matilla, Peter Pangquee Widy Sarwono, Trent Shearer, Zac Van Dam, Yehani Wanigaratne, Huw Wiltshire, Jayden Withy and my dear friend Fiona Peter's son, Ethan Anderson, along with another dear friend Heidi Loy's son, Riley Loy, were of great assistance on the day. After the winter recess I will be able to update the House on visits to the other schools in my electorate and educating them on this very important program.