David Coleman (Banks, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is good to resume my remarks from earlier today. As I said earlier, I think that this Green Army Program really demonstrates a clear philosophical difference when it comes to environmental policy between the government and those opposite, and that difference is no better emphasised than in the respective approaches to emissions reduction. On the government side is the Direct Action Plan, which will have a minimal impact on the economy with a very substantial impact on emissions reduction and will achieve that five per cent target by 2020. Opposite is the carbon tax with huge impacts right across the economy, including the $550 per year that ordinary families have been slugged with. They will have to pay that unfortunate tax.

That is the broader picture on emissions reduction environmental policy. Within that context of a practical approach to fixing environmental problems, the Green Army project is a tremendous example. The Green Army project will involve a huge amount of productive, practical work addressing environmental problems right around Australia. Not only will it provide an environmental benefit but it will also provide an important benefit to the young people of Australia. It provides opportunities for employment for young Australians from 17 to 24 years of age. By getting involved in these projects they know they are doing something great for their local community and their country as well. The government expects 15,000 participants to be involved by 2018 on 1,500 environmental projects. It will, indeed, be a veritable army of people working on these projects.

There is a higher proportion of young people in my electorate than there is in Australia as a whole. The opportunities that are created by the Green Army Program are particularly important and appreciated in my community. The six-month projects with nine young people will be led by a supervisor who will generally have substantial experience in land care and so on. It will be great to see 2,500 people involved in these projects in the next financial year. We are getting very close to the day when these Green Army projects become a reality right around our nation, and that is great to see.

I want to reflect today on two Green Army projects that will be taking place within my electorate. They are projects that I fought for during the election campaign and I was very pleased to make a commitment to those during that campaign. One of the most beautiful regions in my electorate is the area around the Georges River, none more so than the area around Oatley, which is home to Oatley Park, one of the largest urban parks anywhere in Sydney. In Oatley, in the Georges River area, we have the Lime Kiln Bay wetland area. This was established back in 1999 as a very worthy project to effectively capture as many pollutants as possible from stormwater prior to them getting into the Georges River. The function of gross pollutant traps and similar wetlands is to effectively act as a filter. The dirty water comes in from the stormwater and there are things in that water that we do not want in our rivers. We do not want pollutants, detergents or rubbish in our rivers. The role of the pollutant trap at Lime Kiln Bay is to capture much of those pollutants prior to them entering the river.

The wetland has been somewhat successful but there is a lot more that needs to be done. The reality is, if you visit the wetland at Lime Kiln Bay, particularly after heavy rain, you can see the environmental damage that stormwater does to the area: you can see the rubbish that builds up and you can see a slick in the water from the overflow from the man-made gross pollutant trap. Unfortunately, what that means is that on occasion the water in the Georges River near Lime Kiln Bay does not meet the standards that we all want it to. Parts of the Georges River are in very good condition and parts of it are in quite poor condition.

The area around Lime Kiln Bay, particularly after heavy rain, absolutely needs our attention. The Green Army project at Lime Kiln Bay will develop that wetland, plant more vegetation and effectively focus on making it more effective. For a wetland to be effective it needs the right amount of vegetation and the infrastructure to catch those pollutants prior to them getting into the river. Part of the gross pollutant trap is quite thick with reeds and vegetation that is meant to capture the pollutants and part of the area is not. Replanting that vegetation is an important part of the project.

I am looking forward to getting cracking on this. It will complement the great work already being done by local organisations, like the Friends of Oatley, the Oatley Flora and Fauna Conservation Society and the local bushcare group, which does so much great work in conjunction with Hurstville Council. The Lime Kiln Bay project is an important one and is a fantastic product of this very enlightened policy of the Green Army Program.

Another project that we are looking forward to getting started in my electorate is in the Georges River National Park at Padstow. Frankly, the Georges River National Park in Padstow is in an appalling state. There is debris and garbage right around the banks of the river in this area. On a recent trip to this area with some of our local media, those of us present were shocked by the very poor quality of the environment at Padstow. The site below Alfords Point Bridge, which is well known to residents in my electorate from Illawong across to Padstow, has been neglected for some time and there is an unfortunate consequence of that.

We have three important priorities for the clean-up at Padstow. Firstly, the project will remove the significant piles of building and household waste that is on the walking tracks that run down to the Georges River in this area and along the beachfront. As I say, this is an area which urgently needs attention. We will also improve the walking track between Bushland Drive and the beach area. Because of the physical environment, the amount of rubbish and the fact that this track is overgrown and very rarely used, it is not a place that the community can enjoy at the moment. One of the great practical outcomes of this project will be not only the environmental benefit but also the amenity benefit. Once we clean up this area and make it more usable, it will, once again, be a place where families can enjoy the banks of the Georges River at Padstow.

There is also some inappropriate vegetation in this region. It is vegetation which is not native and, in and of itself, has caused problems to the natural environment. We will revegetate the area with native species. As you know, Mr Deputy Speaker, those native species often perform the very useful role of improving the quality of water run-off that ends up in the river.

The Georges River is the environmental jewel in the crown of the Banks electorate and, indeed, much of southern and south-western Sydney. For too long, parts of the Georges River have been neglected. There are over 400 species of fauna in the area. It is, of course, one of the largest urban river systems in Australia. But it has not got the attention that it has deserved in the past. We are certainly looking forward to getting these two projects underway. Further applications are in the works for the Banks electorate, including the beautiful region of Lugarno. As a local member, it is tremendous to be able to bring a practical reality to our environmental policies, in the form of the Green Army program, and to deliver benefits for the people of Banks.

Ken Wyatt (Hasluck, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Green Army Programme) Bill 2014. I was always interested in the program as it operated previously under the Howard government because what I saw was young people being given the opportunity to acquire skills, acquire discipline within a team process and demonstrate for the future that they were very capable young workers who would fit into the workplace in which they sought opportunity. It provided them with a practical experience which enabled them then to convince employers of the future that they were somebody worth considering. Equally, a number of them went into tertiary pathways and undertook studies in the area that had tweaked their interest, and they have gone on to be very successful—some are working with mining companies.

When we talk about the Green Army project, we are talking about a coalition plan aimed at bringing together 15,000 people. It will be the largest standing environmental workforce in Australia's history, providing real and practical solutions to cleaning up riverbanks and creek beds and revegetating sand dunes and mangrove habitat, among other environmental conservation and remediation work.

The Green Army provides an incredible opportunity for young Australians aged 17 to 24 to train and gain experiences and competencies in environmental and heritage conservation. Question time today raised the issue of workforce opportunities. I have heard members opposite find reasons not to support this initiative. But, when we consider young people's pathways into careers, this is one mechanism and one opportunity that will enable them to move into careers. The participants will undertake nationally recognised training qualifications and complete core and elective units which include, for example, Certificate II in Conservation and Land Management, Certificate II in Drainage and Certificate I in Construction. But they will also be dealing with occupational health and safety issues in the context of that training. This will enable individuals to embark on a career in conservation management while participating in projects that generate real benefits for the local environment and the heritage conservation projects across Australia.

I support the sentiment expressed by the member for Banks that there are areas that require some particular focus of attention. Often it is volunteers that do the work. But, when you have an army of people that help you, you increase your capacity to undertake the remediation of our environment. The program will cover costs associated with the involvement of the team, such as participant allowances, team supervisors' wages, uniforms, safety gear, basic equipment such as hand tools, participant training, local transport costs and insurances. The Green Army is an ongoing program that will have 250 projects in 2014-15, 500 projects in 2015-16 and 750 projects in 2016-17.

In my electorate of Hasluck, there are three Green Army projects—one in the north of my electorate centred on Midland, the second in central Wattle Grove and Forrestfield, and the third in the southern corridor of Gosnells and Thornlie. As a member, I am interested in the environment. Certainly, when you consider that Hasluck takes in the suburbs of Guildford, Swan Valley, Kalamunda, Gooseberry Hill, Forrestfield, Wattle Grove and Gosnells, just to name a few, and the bordering foothills of the Darling range, then you have an enriched environment that is unique in its flora and fauna. It is no surprise to people who visit these places that environmental issues are considered by many of my constituents to be of high importance. When I meet with constituents and environmental groups in my electorate I make a point of telling them that I have had a long association with our environment and that we will now have three Green Army projects in Hasluck. I am proud to be a member of this Abbott government in which the minister, Greg Hunt, has given a commitment for this to occur. When we make a commitment and we tell the Australian public that we are going to do something, we deliver on our word.

It was great that Senator Simon Birmingham, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for the Environment, was able to help me launch the three Green Army projects in my electorate. It was interesting to interact with people involved. I learned of their support for the projects and their surprise at the level of commitment that we were prepared to make to protect the environment and equally the level of commitment that we were prepared to give those people who wanted an opportunity to acquire competencies and skills in conservation. Senator Birmingham joined me at the Tom Bateman reserve in Thornlie, which is part of the southern Green Army project. The City of Gosnells plan for the Tom Bateman reserve is to restore the natural environment, which is currently being used as a dumping ground. During my recent round of meetings with local governments it was concerning to hear that nature reserves were being used as dumping grounds for household, building and garden waste. I am confident that sites such as the Tom Bateman reserve can now be fostered by Green Army teams and, through the support of the community, these community assets can be maintained to the highest standards and their full potential can be realised. I would love to have gone back into those regions some 40,000 years ago to have a look at the natural environment—the waterways, the richness of unique species that would have existed in each area—and examine the relationship the local people had with the environment and the land.

It is important we ensure the nature reserves we have are maintained and preserved to a standard so they can be used and enjoyed by families in the area. The Tom Bateman reserve is a classic example of such a reserve, and. I am pleased that the Green Army Program will help to deliver social and environmental benefits for my electorate. Our collective aim for the Tom Bateman reserve is revegetation through the regeneration of natural bushland and for the construction of walkways to allow people to have safe access to this beautiful natural area.

Another nature reserve in this eastern corridor which will benefit from the Green Army Program is the Mary Carroll Park. This area backs onto the Gosnells Primary School, which has a vested interest in the area becoming a safe and welcoming community space. The program will make the area aesthetically pleasing so that it can again be used by families and the school to enable children to experience the natural bushland. I have learned from my relationship with the friends of the area that walking groups and bird watching groups are already using the site for their activities, so they will benefit immensely.

Mary Carroll Park has a large breeding wetland area. In the wet season, it supports large numbers of waterbirds, songbirds, reptiles, turtles and a reservoir of wetland flora. When the season is dry the animals diminish. The work of Eunice Robinson and her team has resulted in the regeneration of areas that had been destroyed by fire or damaged by people dumping rubbish. They have replanted vegetation natural to the area and in doing so they have revitalised the community's interest in the park. The work that they are doing with the support of the Green Army will see the greater enhancement of a very rich natural wetland, allowing it to be enjoyed by all.

The construction of walkways is important in our wetlands because it means that people do not trample through and damage those areas that are unique to the region. The work of the team will include construction of walkways, mangrove planting and riverbed revegetation. Throughout my term as a member, I have been volunteering to go out and spend time planting the right plants and learning much about the complexity of the interrelatedness between the vegetation and the animals living in the area.

When I was first elected, I saw a group of young people working at Lesmurdie Falls who were graduating from the program of their involvement. Two things stood out. One was the immense pride of having been involved in the program and having acquired the competencies and the confidence to work in an area that they had not been involved in before. I was impressed to hear them talk about what they had learned in school and their ability to apply it as a skill within the context of the work they were doing. When I asked them about the regulated hours of work, all of them said that it had been a great process for them because it had enabled them to commit to a team, to be part of the workforce and to have the opportunity to earn an income. Some of those kids would otherwise have been on the streets and I suspect that some of them would have ended up in incarceration. These were Aboriginal kids who had dropped out of school and had not followed the further pathways that we would normally expect children to follow.

In my own electorate I have an increasing rate of unemployment. If the Green Army provides a framework and a structure that will enable the unemployed to move into a mindset of what it is like to be in the workplace then this legislation will have achieved its aims. These people will not live in poverty, as was suggested by a couple; they will feel as though they are contributing to their environment and also to their community.

The Brixton Street Wetlands is another unique area that is suffering from major degradation despite excellent efforts by the local Friends of Brixton Street Wetlands. Brixton Street Wetlands in Kenwick is an extraordinary mixture of wetlands containing over 320 plant species and more than 20 per cent of Perth's flora in just 0.005 per cent of Perth's area. The work of the green army will preserve, maintain and protect this area of quality. The green army will be working to ensure that the rare and endangered species will have an environment in which they are not competing with local weeds. Over 97 per cent of the bushland on this waterlogged soil had been cleared for agriculture or housing, making Brixton Street Wetlands so important. Therefore, the green army initiative will provide opportunity for preservation and regeneration.

I commend the minister for having the vision to resurrect and to reinstitute the Green Army Program, because, to me, it tackles two key issues. One is that it brings forward our coalition commitment to the environment and to the preservation of the bushlands, the parks, the rivers and the wetlands that are so important in key areas. I think the underlying issue that is even more important is the fact that it is giving an employment pathway and an opportunity to the young people, who may have left school, who have not considered what their career pathway may be. These are young people who, through this program, will be given the opportunity of connecting to a learning course, either within a TAFE setting or, ultimately, within a university. They can then decide what full-time employment they will seek following that training. Some have been left wondering what they are going to do. This provides them with a practical approach, where they become involved.

As detailed by the Minister for Environment, the Hon. Greg Hunt, the Green Army Program will be a voluntary opt-in program that will involve short-term placements in a green army team. Where practicable, participants in the Green Army Program will generally receive a green army allowance as an alternative to receiving income support, and the program will provide work-like experience, activities and training opportunities for young people. Section 38H, to be inserted into the Social Security Act, states:

Despite any other provision of the social security law, a social security benefit or social security pension is not payable to a person if the person is receiving green army allowance.

In essence, they will receive one or the other—not both. We are clear about that. This is consistent with our philosophy of giving people help up, not a hand out.

I commend the bill and I certainly acknowledge the minister's vision and contribution to the two key elements of the environment and future employment pathways for young people.

Ewen Jones (Herbert, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Green Army Programme) Bill 2014. I come at this bill more from the point of view expressed towards the end of the member for Hasluck's presentation, in relation to this program giving people the opportunity to have a go.

In 2012 Michael Keenan, the then shadow minister for justice, and I held a community forum on youth crime in Townsville. It was held in the Upper Ross suburb of Rasmussen. The Upper Ross is a dormitory suburb of Townsville. There is not much industry or employment there and that means people have to commute each day to and from work. It is also home to a lot of unemployment and to families needing government assistance. It is a beautiful part of Townsville which hugs the Ross River and lies adjacent to the dam wall, which provides Townsville's major water supply.

It was a night of very strong discussion regarding local crime, but what pleased me the most was the way that Townsville people approached the issue. Sure, there were some who thought that youth crime would be best solved by a good flogging, 'locking them up and throwing away the key' or worse, but the great majority of people in attendance recognised that if there was a silver bullet it would have definitely been fired by now; if there was a quick and easy option to solve the problems in our community it would have already been deployed. The fact was, though, that the problems we face with youth crime are multifaceted. One of the biggest concerns for the people in attendance was that children were dropping out of school and drifting into crime. They were dropping out because they had reached high school and were—largely anecdotally speaking, but the statistics back it up—unable to read and write. That left them largely unemployable in a modern Australia. This issue is compounded by generational unemployment. In Townsville there are homes where no-one has had a job—ever. How do we, as people in this place, rationalise how it must be for a young person to understand the message we are trying to give them that they must work hard and study hard for 12 years and, if they do that, they will get a job, and then they go home and they see that that has never happened to anyone in their family? How do we, as the people in this place, get our heads around where that person is and how do we get them to the position where they can participate in something?

So we have a large group of people who have dropped out and disengaged from the system of education and work. This is the same system around which most of us move for our entire lives, people in this place. How do we get these people into the system and keep them there? How do we get them to have a go? How do we offer them a chance for success?

The green army is not the sole answer to these questions—far from it—but it does form part of that answer for some people. What we have to do with youth unemployment and with generational unemployment is break the habit of being at home. The problem you have when you are at home and you have nowhere to go and nothing to do is that you do not keep regular hours. So quite often when you drive around Townsville—you will be coming home from a function at 11.30 at night or 12.30 or 1.30 in the morning—you will see kids on pushbikes riding around Townsville with nowhere to go. They are sleeping all day. How do we break that habit? How do we get them to turn up? How do we get them an opportunity to actually turn up and have a go? What is the motivation for them to say, 'Look, I want something more; I want something better'? How do we get them to recognise what it is to be part of a team? It is difficult because of the way insurance is with sport and the way clubs are forced to jack up administration prices, increasing the cost of getting people into sport. Along with the cost of uniforms and all of those sorts of things, it is so much more expensive now.

When I was a kid, to play in the four-stone-sevens—which, admittedly, was a very long time ago—you turned up in a pair of shorts and were given a jersey, you did not even have boots. The really classy guys had the foam inserts in the football shorts on the sides. At cricket, you did not have gloves. You did not have pads. You had a bat and ball and three stumps at one end, and one stump at the other end, and the batsmen switched over.

As for the unemployed families, to get their kids into team sport costs so much more. It is so prohibitive to get people to turn up, because they have got to have the right equipment. They are not allowed to play unless they have headgear, pads, protectors, bat and all that sort of stuff that goes with it.

A government member: Registration and insurance.

Registration and insurance. How do we get those kids to understand what it is to achieve something, when they have been in a situation where no-one has achieved much at all? Once again, this is anecdotally speaking, but I have been in conversation with people who said, 'Sooner or later, I'll go to Stuart. I'll go through Cleveland, and then I'll end up in Stuart. That is what we do.' Those are the things that we have to watch out for. This is not at all everyone on the Green Army; I am talking about one of the issues in relation to the Green Army.

To achieve something; to complete something; to see something before you started and what the finished product must be; to be able to stand back and look at your handiwork and have some pride: what must it be like for people in that situation to be there? I commend the Minister for Environment, Greg Hunt, for following this through. It is an opportunity for young Australians aged 17 to 24 to gain training and experience in environment and heritage conservation. If you talk to Dr Scott Crawford from NQ Dry Tropics in Townsville, you will discover one of the things that they are most worried about is that we are trying to get people employment in conservation, landscape gardening and all those sorts of things where there are not many jobs. That is not the thing that I see out of the Green Army.

What I see out of the Green army is the ability for someone to get up, put their boots on, go to work, do the work, come home and do it again—to break the habit of being around. The Green Army will build on the Howard government's successful Green Corps program, established in 1996. It planted and propagated more than 14 million trees, maintained more than 5,000 kilometres of walking tracks and erected more than 8,000 kilometres of fencing. What did Labor do? Labor scrapped all those things. The initiative was torn apart, rebadged and failed to improve the environment, before being terminated completely in 2012. They had far too many other good programs to install. Young people no longer had the opportunity they once had to gain training and experience. We lost the link to having vital environmental projects undertaken in the local communities. This is something we took to the electorate as a key election promise last year.

There will be 250 projects and approximately 2,500 people undertaking on-the-ground, environmental activities in the first year alone. The Green Army will grow to become Australia's largest ever environmental workforce with 15,000 participants by 2018. We have to continue to make it enthusiastic and engaging. They get the same amount of money at the moment for sitting at home and doing nothing. Why would they turn up to this? Because it is part of something and defines what it is to belong to something. Projects can be carried across urban regional areas and remote Australia on public land, Indigenous held lands and on private land where there has been a clear community environmental heritage benefit.

The coalition government understands that young people need employment and they need a start in life. At the moment, youth unemployment is double the national rate. That means it is harder to get started. And if you cannot get started, it makes it harder to make success, which makes it easier to drift on to irrelevance and other things that you do not want to be involved in. Trainees will receive a training wage, work skills and formal qualifications, so at the end of it, if they push through with this, they will be able to say that they were actually part of something, and this is the piece of paper that says it. We will provide $300 million over four years and a further $222.1 million in 2017-18, and $289.2 million in 2018-19 to re-establish the Green Army.

There have been a lot of members on the other side questioning workplace health and safety and all those sorts of things in relation to this scheme. Can I be very clear: the health and safety of participants engaged in this program will remain governed by the relevant statutes, regulations, by-laws and requirements in respect of workplace health and safety laws. This is not a fly-by-night organisation. This is not a fly-by-night operation. Service providers, the people who win the tenders, are responsible for engaging and managing participants and will hold primary responsibility for the health and safety of the Green Army teams. It is one of the things that Townsville City Council, who will be our local contact on jobs in the seat of Herbert, were very clear about. They were quite worried. They wanted to know whether they would be responsible for participants' uniforms; for participants' turning up, for sick leave and for all those things that go with being part of a job. The answer is no. Townsville City Council are there merely to tell us what they want done; how to get it done, and the end result; and to show us where to go. Project sponsors have shared responsibility for providing a safe-work environment for Green Army teams, including safe access to the site where work is to be carried out. The Commonwealth will also implement a workplace health and safety audit scheme for the Green Army Program, involving independent workplace health and safety audits of service providers and projects.

I will throw the words of the member for Grayndler back to those opposite—there has been relentless negativity from Labor. There have been chants coming from the other side. They have sounded like a vuvuzela, with a chorus of negativity that comes out of their people. They have got their set lines, they just trot them out and they say exactly the same thing. No matter how many times it is repudiated, they have just got to get it out there, because they have already sent it out to their electorate. We could do that but the member for Grayndler would get up here. He would probably come out and say that he had already started this program under Labor's infrastructure program and that he actually turned the first sod a few years ago. That is what we get from the other side.

Insurances will be required to be held by all relevant parties. The Commonwealth will also take out personal accident insurance and public and/or product liability insurance for Green Army participants. This is consistent with practice for the previous National Green Jobs Corps.

The first Townsville project we will get underway is the Booroona Trail and Loam Island clean-up. As I said earlier, the suburb of Rasmussen hugs the Ross River, one of the most beautiful parts of town. Booroona Trail is a lovely part of it, but it is infested with weeds and needs a very strong clean-up. It is a beautiful part of the river walk and it is one of the things the Townsville City Council would love to get to, but they can never seem to get there. Our Green Army project will get in there.

As the local member I would like to say to my Green Army participants that if they turn up and participate I will put on a barbecue every Friday I am in town—a sausage sizzle at the end of work on a Friday afternoon. I will invite local employers who run construction companies or sawmills or are builders, and I will introduce my people from the Green Army projects to those people around town who may be looking for someone. I make no guarantee about jobs, but this is all about an opportunity to get a job and I will do my bit to make sure that the people here get to stand in front of the people who can employ them. This area of Rasmussen has high unemployment and little infrastructure and very few federal government services. Residents have concerns about the level of unemployment in the Upper Ross region.

We have been in contact with the Townsville City Council and they found out exactly how the project was going to run, and the lack of impact it will have on the way the Townsville City Council operates. There will, of course, be some administrative burden, but the payoff at the end will be far greater than that. They are very keen to provide more things, and there are things needed around my electorate, down towards Rowes Bay and along the foreshore.

If you get a chance come to Townsville and see the new Jezzine Barracks redevelopment. It is a spectacular place. Get across to Magnetic Island. They have just had the King of the Island event. Get there and see the heritage trails around the island and the work that can be done over there by the Green Army. This is an opportunity to participate and to succeed. It is an opportunity for people to have a go and break the bad habits and find out what it is like to work for a living and discover the joys of being part of a team and of starting something and finishing it—then stand back and maybe get a job at the end of it. This is what we have to do. This is the Australia we have to be. We have to be a more productive Australia. If we are more productive we will become more affluent and if we are more affluent and more productive in the Upper Ross we will be more inclusive. That is the most important thing in the electorate of Herbert. I commend the bill to the House.

Dan Tehan (Wannon, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I commend the member for Herbert, especially for the telling points he made at the end of his speech about what the Green Army project is all about. He understands that this is the government saying to young people, 'We are there to help you. We are there to give you a hand. We are there to try to show you a path that will lead you to get experience in working, which can then lead to you having meaningful employment.' As we all know, the best thing we can do for our young people is give them work. That is what this government is all about.

It is interesting that we are having this debate the day after the budget, because with the budget being handed down last night we saw the Treasurer explain the budget situation quite tellingly. The key thing that came out of it, and it is a sad thing, was the extent of the mess that has been left to us to clean up. That is epitomised in one simple sum—that is, the debt interest bill we will be paying unless we do something to fix the mess: $1 billion per month, if we do not fix up the mess. When it comes to the Green Army it is interesting because there are probably two, three, four or maybe 10 Green Army projects every month that cannot happen because of the interest bill. If you look at it in terms of cancer centres, in terms of new hospitals, or in terms of new schools, $1 billion per month is what the interest bill is, and that is why the Treasurer and this government are united in fixing the budget mess left behind for us. It is so that we can move on and make sure that we have the financial ability to roll out excellent project like these Green Army projects.

I have been very fortunate in the electorate of Wannon because, through the very good work of the Minister for the Environment and his parliamentary secretary, Senator Simon Birmingham, I was able to gain four of these Green Army projects for my electorate. I hate to big-note myself because, Member for Herbert, I am sure there are more coming your way. I must say that I would be more than happy to campaign for you to get some for Magnetic Island. I have walked a few of the trails on the island, and that would be a great Green Army initiative. I look forward to supporting you in approaching the relevant minister and parliamentary secretary on that. But I was extremely fortunate to get four key projects in this area. I thank both the Minister for the Environment and the parliamentary secretary for taking the time to come down to the electorate of Wannon and speak with community groups and farmers and get a good grasp of what the needs are in our local community when it comes to environmental measures.

It is not great big new taxes. That is not what we are looking for. We are not looking for a great big new tax that will cripple our dairy industry. What we are looking for are good practical sustainable projects that will help our local environment on the ground. That is what the Green Army project is all about. It is sensible and practical and not only will it achieve good things on the ground but also it will provide potential pathways for young people into employment. So it is a program that deserves serious commendation.

The four projects that I got approval for in the lead-up to the election are interesting and diverse projects, and I will go through and mention them. The first is a commitment to preserve the Corangamite walking trails. As we all know, walking trails are very important to our local communities, because we want to make sure that the people are fit and active and that they have the space and trails to exercise in and use. But trails are also very important for tourism, because if you have excellent trails, tourists will come and use them. It is fantastic for your local community, but it also brings in income for them, and this is what these Corangamite walking trails will do. So for us to be able to make sure that they are of a very good standard, that they have the right signage on them and that they can become an attraction not only for the local community but also for those outside the local community to come and use is a very good initiative. I congratulate the Corangamite local government for putting forward this proposal, and I hope that this initiative will be a Green Army success story. I was quite happy to support it, because I think it will be.

Another of the proposals was to do with Heytesbury Biofund project, which the parliamentary secretary came down and announced for me. With a local workforce capable of assisting the well-established Biofund project and community planning program, this project involves revegetation works in the Heytesbury region to increase biodiversity, protect waterways, improve water quality and provide buffers against impacts such as nutrition run-off. This project is in the heart of Australia's best dairy producing area. It will work with landowners to make sure we continue to maintain the environment and that when it comes to nutrients and such things the run-offs do not impact on waterways et cetera—another excellent project, and I commend the Heytesbury District Landcare Network for their initiative in putting this project forward. The Heytesbury District Landcare Network is an excellent landcare network. They are engaged in the community, they have active people who are always looking for ways to improve the land in their region, and I commend them for putting this proposal forward.

The next proposal we were able to get is the Goldfields Employment and Learning Centre—trees for the Green Army project. This project is based in Maryborough, in a nursery where they are looking to work with local landcare groups not only to grow the shrubs but to go out and plant them and liaise with landcare groups and farmers to make sure they can be planted on the farms where the shrubs are needed. Once again, the Goldfields Employment and Learning Centre has done a great job in putting this proposal forward. They understand, because they spend a lot of time with young people in the central goldfields area trying to help them in the learning and engagement space. They see this as a key initiative for making sure the young people in that community have another pathway to potential employment—again, an excellent proposal. I look forward to working with them to make sure this project hits the ground running and does the much-needed work that is required in that area to ensure that young people, especially those with socioeconomic disadvantage, have this opportunity to get out there, do some meaningful and worthwhile work, and get the experience that comes with doing that—and then get the self-confidence to be able to go on and find work.

The final proposal is the Moyne Resilient Farms Project. Once again, this was announced by the parliamentary secretary when he came down to Wannon. It will provide landholders in the Moyne Resilient Farms Project with a local workforce capable of assisting with tree planting, weed removal and direct seeding. A key part of the project is that landholders are responsible for securing planting labour externally or providing it for themselves. The Green Army commitment will ensure that landholders with large quantities of trees to plant can access local labour and provide youth with on-hand real job opportunities in the rural landscape, which needs skilled young people to fill future jobs. This is a way of saying to young people, 'Come and get some experience, come and get some practice—especially when it comes to farming—and there are potential opportunities there for you then to join that local workforce.'

One of the things we are finding in the agricultural sector is that there are opportunities there for young people who do want to get work in the agricultural sector. So if you are prepared to engage and you are prepared to say 'Yes, this is the type of work that I want to do', then there are opportunities there, and this project is one way of giving young people some experience of what it is like to work on the land. It is not for everyone; it is not easy. But if you come and do it and like the experience, there are work opportunities there for you. I think that is the key thing. It is encouraging young people and showing them that there are opportunities there, and doing so in a worthwhile way, doing so in a way where they get that sense of pride from being able to say—and I must confess I have done this myself—'I put that tree plantation in.' And one of the things about putting tree plantations in as a young boy is that I have had the joy later in life of going back and seeing those trees fully grown. It is not going to change the earth, but it is a small contribution that you have made, and it is something that gives you great pride. And I must say that even at home on our very small nuisance block, I have planted some trees with my youngest daughter, and I take great pride in watching that plantation grow. Two years ago the trees were up to my knees. They were as high as she was. Now they tower above her and they are higher than me—that is in a couple of years. You get a great sense of achievement in saying that is something which is permanent. That is just one example of what this Green Army project can provide.

I must confess the way the Minister for the Environment has gone out and advocated on behalf of this Green Army Program is a credit to him. He obviously has grasped and understands clearly the benefits this program can bring. He has very much lead the way in going around the countryside and making sure that there are projects right across Australia which are now going to be rolled out since the Australian people made the decision that they wanted to elect a new government to get Australia heading on the right path again. This is another one of those commitments that we took to the election which is now being implemented.

One of the key things about this program is that the policy was well thought out. It is being well laid out and it is not being rushed. So we are going to ensure that it is administered and implemented in the correct way. We are now seeing the tragedy in the evidence at the pink batts royal commission about a program which was rushed when it was implemented, where OH&S was not taken into consideration. What we are seeing here is a minister on top of his brief, a program which is being well thought out and sensible, which will lead to real, tangible benefits. This is important. I hope those on the other side have taken note of that and are starting to understand that, if they ever are given the opportunity again, this is the way to go about developing and implementing policy. I really do hope that they are learning the lessons about what a good, mature, adult government can deliver and how to go about delivering for the Australian people. We see through this program and in particular through the budget last night that the adults are back in charge and this nation is all the better for it.

George Christensen (Dawson, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a pleasure to follow on from the member for Wannon to speak on this Social Security Legislation Amendment (Green Army Programme) Bill 2014. The bill is yet another example of the Liberal-National government fulfilling the promises and the commitments it made to the Australian people in the last election. We promised we would raise a green army and this bill enables us to do exactly that. I am also proud to say that this bill will enable the government to meet the commitments it made in my electorate of Dawson under this program. These are important commitments because, along with hundreds of other commitments, they will deliver three important things: valuable training to the young, a sense of worth and achievement to participants in the program and real, tangible outcomes for the environment—that is, outcomes the participants can be proud of, as alluded to by the previous speaker, the member for Wannon.

The specific purpose of this bill is to enable variations to the Social Security Act 1991, so as to allow the payment of participants in the Green Army Program. The bill defines the Green Army Program. It inserts a provision for a Green Army payment and defines how recipients of such a payment are to be treated under the nation's social security arrangements. The Liberal-National government has a strong history of delivering for the environment. By that I mean delivering real outcomes for the environment. Making token gestures which do nothing more than attack industries and jobs does not deliver real outcomes for the environment. The Green Army is designed to deliver those real outcomes.

It will build upon the highly successful Green Corps program that was established under the Howard Liberal-National government in 1996. Over the life of the Green Corps program, we saw the propagation and planting of more than 14 million trees, the building of more than 8,000 kilometres of fencing, the clearing of more than 50,000 weeds and the construction or maintenance of more than 5,000 kilometres of walking tracks and boardwalks. Unfortunately under the previous Labor administration, the Rudd-Gillard government, we saw the successful Green Corps program done away with. The Labor government did what they could to break this program. In typical Labor fashion, they saw a solution and created a problem. They tore that program apart. They rebadged it and turned it into something that provided no real or significant benefit. Eventually the program was killed off in 2012.

Unlike the carbon tax, which the Labor Party claimed to have terminated before voting once again in this new parliament to keep, they really did terminate the Green Corps program and the young people no longer had the opportunity to gain valuable skills while helping the environment. Labor took a different approach. They decided to hit families, businesses and the economy with the world's biggest carbon tax, but the carbon tax was a pointless attack on the entire economy. Despite a $7.6 billion tax, which is what the carbon tax collected, emissions for the first 12 months barely changed—by 0.1 per cent. The Green Army will actually return real outcomes to the environment while giving young people dignity, skills and a sense of achievement. There are three components to this Green Army Program. The first component is the service provider. Service providers will be contracted by the government to engage Green Army teams, to deliver training, wages and payments, and to manage the activities of the Green Army teams. They will provide regular progress reports and ensure that projects are completed.

The second component is project sponsors. Project sponsors will be the organisations—such as local councils, community groups and natural resource management groups—that are able to develop suitable projects for the Green Army to undertake. Sponsors can submit their proposals through an application process in which they will be assessed and potentially recommended for action.

The third component, most importantly, is the participants of the Green Army itself—the soldiers, so to speak. The Green Army Program will be targeting young people between the ages of 17 and 24. These young people may be unemployed, they may be school leavers seeking a gap year or they may be graduates. The Green Army Program will provide funding to those individuals who make up the Green Army teams undertaking key environmental project activities.

Project sponsors will be the ones that supply the equipment, the materials and the expertise that will be needed to deliver on the project. One of the most important outcomes for the Green Army Program is training and skill development for young people who may not otherwise have such an opportunity to gain those skills and that training.

In addition to the experience and on-the-job training, another key element of the Green Army Program is the provision of vocational and accredited training. Such training will be delivered by a registered training organisation under the frameworks of the Australian Qualifications Framework. The wide range of projects undertaken through this Green Army Program will link in with a wide range of training opportunities. I can list some of them: land management, conservation, heritage conservation, work readiness, leadership, project and human resource management, and trade skills such as heritage trade skills.

Although many—in fact, most—of these Green Army projects will be hands-on outdoor jobs, they will not be exclusively outdoor projects. Training undertaken in conjunction with Green Army projects does satisfy requirements under the Australian Qualifications Framework and service providers will be responsible for making sure that happens. They can tailor training opportunities to best suit the needs of participants and a training plan can be negotiated on an individual basis. First aid training and workplace health and safety training must be completed by all participants before they start work on Green Army projects.

The workplace health and safety of Green Army participants is particularly important to the Liberal-National government. For this reason, the Department of the Environment will work with service providers to agree on a risk management framework for the delivery of Green Army projects. The service providers will be required to work with sponsors on risk plans for each individual project. Risk plans will be one component of the regular reporting requirement.

So claims made about Green Army participants not having safety protections are just wrong. The health and safety of participants engaged in the program will remain governed by the relevant statutes, by the regulations and by the by-laws and requirements of state and territory laws in regard to workplace health and safety. The Commonwealth will also implement a work health and safety audit scheme for the Green Army Program, involving independent work health and safety audits of service providers and projects. That is very much due diligence and I can only wish that had happened with the pink batts scheme.

The Liberal-National government will provide $525 billion over the next four years to establish that Green Army. Our policy that we took to the election, and which we are acting on here, will raise this Green Army of 15,000 foot soldiers; the largest standing environmental workforce in the nation and in the nation's history. Our army will provide a real and practical solution to cleaning up riverbanks and creek beds, to revegetating sand dunes, to revegetating mangrove habitats and to a range of other environmental conservation remediation work.

In my electorate of Dawson in North Queensland, we have already identified and committed to two Green Army projects. I am very pleased that both of those projects had funding committed to them in last night's budget and they will go ahead. The first project is supporting an organisation called Eco Barge Clean Seas and the program that they operate within the stunning Whitsunday region. Everyone knows about the beautiful Whitsunday: the islands, the beaches and the white sand beach at Whitehaven. What this program does is work on the natural beauty of the island by cleaning up the debris that we find in the water and around those islands.

Since July 2009, through a volunteer effort, this organisation has removed 110,000 kilograms worth of debris from the environment. That was just waste and rubbish that has come out of drains and come off ships—that sort of thing. I happen to have gone out a couple of times with the Eco Barge Clean Seas group—at one stage, with the Prime Minister—to one of the islands to help pick up marine debris that was around the island. We also went out with the Minister for the Environment at one stage to see some of the work they were doing in sorting out all of this rubbish.

They are a group that is doing something very concrete and positive for the environment. They are making a real difference. In fact, in conjunction with Fauna Rescue Whitsundays, the Eco Barge Clean Seas group has just recently launched the Whitsunday Marine Turtle Rescue Centre at their headquarters to ensure that any sick or injured marine turtle is provided with the care that it needs.

The Green Army working with Eco Barge Clean Seas will mean that more work can be done, skills and experience can be learned and there will be better outcomes for the local environment all around. I have made a joke that in this instance, because a lot of the work will be done on the water, it will be the 'green navy' component of the program.

The second project is working with the Don River Improvement Trust in the town of Bowen to fix some of the problems that we have with the Don River. The Don River has a catchment of about 1,200 square kilometres. It goes from the Clarke Range through to Bowen on the coast. It falls 250 metres in about 60 kilometres—a very steep gradient for a river—and it is one of the fastest-flowing rivers in the nation and the fastest-flowing in the tropics. When it rains, this river really runs. We have a flood warning time of about six to nine hours. We have had major floods through the Don in 1970, 1979, 1980, 1988, 1991 and 2008. That is not the result of carbon emissions; it has been going on for a long time before that, throughout the 19th century and into the early 20th. The record flood on this river was 9.7 metres in 1946—believe it or not. Floods have always happened there, but in recent years we have seen a build-up of sand in the river mouth and all along the river. It has been held together through non-native grasses and weeds that are choking the riverbed. Water in its natural course has failed to flush the sand out because of this vegetation. What would normally be a minor flood is now causing a flow of break-outs in certain areas. We had one recently that did millions of dollars' worth of damage to tomato farms. The impact was on the farmers, but it could also fall on residents. There is a potential that the Don River could break out and head towards the Queens Beach district with its sizeable residential community. That would pose a risk to life and property.

The Whitsunday Regional Council is doing a report at the moment on how to mitigate flooding on the Don River. That is several months away but, without a doubt, if we can get a Green Army team in there to do some remedial work by removing the noxious weeds in the river and repairing the riverbank, it will assist in a minor way. We have just had Cyclone Ida, the aftermath of which has been devastating and which I do not want to see again. I am committed to this project but I am also looking for further funding to do more serious work on the Don River. These are just two projects in my electorate that the Green Army will undertake. It is most welcomed by the people of Dawson and by myself. I do commend the government on the Green Army Program. It is delivering on an election commitment and it will result in real outcomes for the environment.

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

It is my pleasure to follow the member for Dawson, who presented a very interesting discussion of projects in his electorate. I look forward to seeing the progress of those projects. I too rise to support this fantastic coalition election commitment. I am excited to have it begin in my electorate of Solomon.

The Green Army Program will begin in July 2014 and, as the member for Dawson said, it will be Australia's largest ever environmental workforce. Nationally, it will increase to 15,000 participants by 2018 and it will be capable of delivering 1,500 environmental projects on the ground. There is nothing shabby about it: it is a very big ambition and I am absolutely delighted to be part of it. The Green Army project works like this: young local people aged 17 and 24 years who are interested in protecting their local environment while gaining hands-on practical skills and experience will be engaged to carry out projects in an area where the aim is to improve their local environment and, indeed, community.

Local projects may include, but are not limited to: propagation and planting of native seedlings; weed control; revegetation and regeneration of local parks; habitat protection and restoration; improving water quality by cleaning up waterways, which the member for Dawson talked about; revegetation of sand dunes and mangroves; creek bank regeneration; foreshore and beach restoration; construction of boardwalks and walking tracks to protect local wildlife; and cultural heritage conservation.

The coalition is encouraging local organisations to use their imagination and expertise to create unique projects suited to their local surrounds, which is important for my electorate in the Top End of the Territory. Proposed projects will be assessed on a merit basis against its project's environmental benefits, the benefit to the local community and the potential for skills training for the project's participants. As the member for Solomon, I am calling on local organisations and individuals around Darwin and Palmerston to put forward their ideas for local Green Army projects. We want to hear from environmental groups, local community groups, youth organisations, local councils and natural resource management bodies.

While the coalition's Green Army Program aims to improve our local environment, there will be significant benefits to young Territorians as well. This is a very exciting project for the younger generations of Darwin and Palmerston, as it is a real opportunity for them to engage with their local community while gaining real skills which will help them enter the workforce when that time comes. Young people will gain hands-on, practical knowledge and experience, while enhancing their job readiness and increasing their skills base. Green Army projects will engage at least one team supervisor and up to nine participants to complete one project in 20 to 26 weeks. These participants will receive a Green Army allowance throughout the project with the team supervisor employed and paid a wage consistent with the gardening and landscaping services award.

Funding will be provided to each Green Army team for materials and equipment to allow participants to carry out their work. This can provide an alternative to income support for many young Territorians interested in upskilling and engaging in real work experiences while giving back to the local community at the same time. Participants can apply as school leavers and gap year students and, upon completion, there will be opportunities for participants to undertake further education and training as well as potential for employment with councils, Territory national parks or the thousands of environmental businesses across Australia.

Unfortunately, in true Labor style, misleading accusations have been thrown around about the health and safety measures for our Green Army. I heard fellow Territorian the member for Lingiari speaking ill of this project earlier today. Claims that Green Army participants will have no safety protection are incorrect, and it is absolutely irresponsible for those on that side of the House to spread these mistruths. They just cannot seem to get involved in anything that is positive, and this is a positive program for our youth.

The health and safety of Green Army participants will be governed by the relevant work health and safety laws in the Territory. The service providers will also have a responsibility for their Green Army teams and project sponsors will have a duty to provide a safe working environment. Insurance will be required to be held by all relevant parties, and the Commonwealth will also take out personal accident or product liability insurance for Green Army participants. This practice is consistent with the previous National Green Jobs Corp.

I am particularly excited for this project to begin in my electorate. The electorate of Solomon encompasses all of Darwin and Palmerston. We have some of the most beautiful landscapes in the Territory. Territorians are proud of their natural environment. Our local waterways are a source of food, income and recreation. Territory-wide we have some of the most pristine waterways in Australia. As a result, we have a strong passion for preserving our waterways. However, the member for Lingiari does not support this program, so unfortunately only Darwin and Palmerston organisations will be able to apply for this program. I look forward to seeing some constructive submissions from the Territory's environmental bodies as to how the grants program can benefit the people of Darwin and Palmerston.

The coalition has a strong background and much experience in delivering for Australia's environment. I am confident that this Green Army project will build on the Howard government's successful Green Corps program, which was established in 1996. Throughout the life of the Green Corps program participants delivered many local community oriented projects, including propagating and planting more than 14 million trees, erecting more than 8,000 kilometres of fencing, clearing more than 50,000 weeds, and constructing and maintaining more than 5,000 kilometres of walking tracks and boardwalks.

In 2014 we are much more aware of the impact humans are having on our environment and, more than ever, Australians are keen to lend a hand to preserve our natural landscapes. The Northern Territory and the rest of Australia has a natural environment that draws visitors from all over the world who travel thousands of kilometres just to see our amazing natural wonders. In the Territory our tourism industry is well served by our natural attractions. We are blessed with a magnificent harbour, with kilometres of tropical coastline surrounding Darwin and Palmerston. We have the Kakadu National Park covering almost 20,000 square kilometres of natural landscape. We have the Litchfield National Park with its many watering holes and walking tracks. More than ever, it is vital to the Territory that we preserve our environment. What better way to do that than to engage local young Territorians to learn about the environment and possibly develop a career in caring for our local community?

We have much catching up to do due to the Labor government's failure to have an efficient environmental policy that provides actual results. This is typical of the Labor Party—all talk and no action. Labor's approach to the environment was to hit families, businesses and the economy with the carbon tax. The carbon tax was an attack on the entire Australian economy, and it did not even decrease our impact on the environment. Basically, it did not work. Despite a $7.8 billion tax, emissions for the first 12 months barely changed by 0.1 per cent.

Under Labor's watch, the important Green Corps initiative was torn apart, rebadged and failed to improve the environment. Then, in true Labor form, it was dismantled in 2012. Young people no longer had this fantastic opportunity to gain real life skills whilst giving back to their local community and improving the environment in which they lived. The coalition's Green Corps projects reached all corners of the Northern Territory, and the program certainly had a lot of support in Darwin and Palmerston. Significant projects completed in the Territory included the Casuarina Coastal Reserve project in my electorate, which saw the construction of three kilometres of walking track and boardwalk through the mangroves and monsoonal vine thickets along the Casuarina foreshore. A major Landcare group project in Darwin saw weed control, site preparation and tree planting in association with the Atlas moth. A project in Darwin's CBD area aimed to rehabilitate the native plant community of the escarpment, along with Darwin's foremost park within the CBD area. The project tasks included a process of extensive weed eradication, fire danger control and revegetation.

Based on how successful these Green Corps projects were, I have no doubt the Green Army projects in my electorate will be extremely effective and I encourage anyone interested in starting a project to contact my electorate office. The Coalition's Green Army Program will provide, as I said, 150,000 young people with the opportunity to work on local projects and improve their local community. This will be the largest standing environmental workforce in Australia's history. While the youth involvement in this project is a major component of this policy, the objective of the Green Army is to combat land degradation, clean up our waterways, provide real and practical solutions to cleaning up riverbanks and creek beds, revegetate sand dunes, revegetate mangrove habitat and a host of other environmental conservation projects.

We believe in encouraging practical, hands-on, grassroots action in combatting human impact on our environment. This is a fantastic way to harness the knowledge of local communities, encouraging them to identify and fix the local problems. I know we are not short of this knowledge in the electorate of Solomon. We have fantastic community leaders with a passion for environmental awareness, many of whom I have met during my time as the member for Solomon. This approach to environmental issues will foster community spirit, local ownership and teamwork, of which I can proudly say we do so well in Darwin and Palmerston.

I congratulate the minister for his hard work in unravelling the environmental mess that the Labor Party has left us. With an unsuccessful carbon tax and no effective policy to tackle environmental issues on the ground, the Labor Party left the minister with a real mess. I have no doubt that the Green Army project will be a huge success for Australia, and I know it will be a success in Solomon. I cannot wait to see the fabulous projects that I know my constituents will come up with. Once again, Minister Hunt has done an awesome job with this policy. I wholeheartedly support this bill and look forward to the green army starting in July 2014.

Louise Markus (Macquarie, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Green Army Programme) Bill 2014. This bill is an important step in the delivery of a key election commitment and also in the pursuit of real outcomes for the environment. The coalition has always been committed to taking direct action on the environment. We recognise that practical work and building on partnerships between bushcare groups and community organisations are what will produce long-term outcomes.

This legislation provides the key framework and structure for the implementation of the Green Army Program across the nation. During the election campaign, there were 150 Green Army projects announced nationwide, with an additional 100 to be rolled out between 2014 and 2015. The Green Army will become Australia's largest ever environmental workforce, building to 15,000 participants by 2018. This means the program will be capable of delivering around 1,500 on-the-ground projects. The projects and initiatives will vary from the clean-up of riverbanks and creek beds to the revegetation of degraded land and mangrove habitat.

Given that the electorate of Macquarie encompasses the Hawkesbury and the Blue Mountains, with much of it World Heritage listed national parks, this program will be significant for our region and our communities. The effects will be tangible and visible for the community to see and will help to create and conserve areas for families and individuals to enjoy. What is most significant about the Green Army Program is the opportunity it presents for our young people. This voluntary initiative is tailored for 17 to 24­year­olds—a critical demographic for our nation. We all know what a challenging situation our young people can find themselves in, particularly when they are transitioning from school to work. In a changing employment landscape, many young people who have so much potential find themselves struggling as they transition from school to work.

The Green Army is an important milestone for providing job opportunities for our young people and a pathway to training and/or employment. Participants in the Green Army can apply as school leavers and gap year students, and the unemployed can also opt to join the Green Army as an alternative to Work for the Dole programs. The Green Army will provide meaningful, practical, hands-on environmental skills, training and experience for thousands of young Australians. The program will boost workforce training and productivity, foster teamwork, local ownership and community spirit.

I was fortunate enough to see firsthand the success of the Green Corps project during the period of the Howard government. There were significant outcomes achieved during this time, both for young people and for the environment. At the time, I had the opportunity to observe and participate in a project at Second Ponds Creek. As a result of that project, many of the participants went on to further training and employment. Unfortunately, when the Labor government came to power, they dismantled the Green Corps and replaced it with the National Green Jobs Corps, which effectively reclassified unemployed people, who continued to receive an income support payment, and then it was abolished altogether.

The Green Army Program will involve six-monthly placements in Green Army teams, providing an alternative to income support for many young Australians interested in engaging in work-like experiences and activities. Up to nine eligible participants and at least one team supervisor will constitute a Green Army team. The projects will run between 20 and 26 weeks. During this period, Green Army participants will have the opportunity to develop job-ready skills and undertake training. It will be the responsibility of the service provider to develop training plans for each of the Green Army participants. Participants will receive a Green Army allowance while participating in the program and the service provider will be responsible for the disbursement of the allowance. Team supervisors will be employed and paid a wage by the service provider. The bill ensures that people receiving a Green Army allowance under the Green Army Program will not also receive a social security benefit or social security pension simultaneously.

I was pleased during the election campaign in Macquarie to announce an important Green Army project within the Blue Mountains, which will begin rollout later this year. The Prince Henry Cliff Walk in the upper Blue Mountains is a beautiful walk that covers the top of the cliff line and most of the major lookouts. This Green Army project will include essential track upgrade of this iconic walk, which was constructed between 1934 and 1936. This will have benefits for the tourist industry within the mountains. I believe this project will provide significant impetus to the ongoing work of volunteer groups, councils and other stakeholders in improving revegetation of bushland and the upgrade of important reserve facilities. It is one of the busiest tourist precincts in the Blue Mountains and provides various connections to the Federal Pass walking track and the tourism precincts in both Leura and Katoomba.

People living and working in the electorate of Macquarie share a passion to see our region thrive and grow. We also share a passion for the environment and for preserving it for future generations. I recently also met with the Hawkesbury City Council to discuss opportunities for other projects to be submitted for round 1 later this year. I am pleased to note that the council have already taken up this opportunity and have submitted ideas for other projects across the region. I believe there is a lot of untapped potential in our region and I look forward to working with the community and bushcare groups in the Blue Mountains and the Hawkesbury to deliver these important projects. I know that this program will deliver long-term results not only for the environment but for our community.

I think it is important to also acknowledge the Greater Western Sydney Conservation Corridor, which the coalition government last night reaffirmed in the budget a commitment of $15 million. This will help to preserve the Cumberland Plain Woodland. This includes $7.5 million in direct funding for the acquisition of threatened land in the Cumberland Conservation Corridor. This commitment will help green urban lands and protect existing green areas in the Greater Western Sydney region. I am pleased to see this come to fruition after many years of hard work. It has been a real team effort to plan and prepare for this project. The protection of green areas within and around the electorate of Macquarie is a vital part of making our local community more liveable and this initiative offers a once in a generation chance to establish a conservation corridor, enhance our urban areas and preserve important habitat for future generations.

I am very pleased to support this bill as it is an important piece of legislation that will help deliver to more young people more work in my electorate and opportunities to learn and grow. The coalition government is getting on with the job of not only building a stronger economy but also providing our young people with a future while protecting, conserving and building on our environmental strengths.

Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Communications) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to rise to speak on the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Green Army Program) Bill 2014. The measures contained within this bill seek to deliver on the government's election commitment to create a 15,000-strong standing Green Army, which will serve as the largest standing environmental workforce in Australia's history. The coalition believes in encouraging hands-on, practical, grassroots environmental action as a means of fixing environmental problems, as well as tapping into the knowledge of local communities and encouraging them to identify and fix their own local problems. This policy approach has great synergy with the successful work I have witnessed on many occasions in my electorate of Bradfield to protect and nourish the vitally important native bush of our area. I am confident, therefore, that the measures contained in this bill will be warmly welcomed in the electorate of Bradfield.

In the brief time available to me this evening I want to touch on three points: firstly, to speak about the vital importance of our natural heritage in the electorate of Bradfield and particularly the importance of native bushland; secondly, to commend the work done by many enthusiastic local volunteers to protect and improve our native bushland; and, thirdly, to speak about the measures contained in this bill and highlight the synergies between the approach that this bill proposes and what is already working very successfully in my electorate of Bradfield as well as in many other parts of the country.

Let me describe the beautiful, natural environment that we are privileged to enjoy in the electorate of Bradfield. In the electorate of Bradfield almost every resident is fortunate to live within just a few minutes of extensive swathes of natural bushland. Whether you back onto the Lane Cove National Park, like many areas such as West Pymble, West Killara and West Lindfield do, whether you back onto the Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park, as many in the north of Bradfield do, or whether you are between the many nature reserves and pockets of bush all across Bradfield you will know that native bushland is a defining characteristic of Sydney's upper north shore and of my electorate of Bradfield. We are very privileged in Bradfield to live amongst such beautiful native bush. Of course, as we all know, when native bush intermingles with suburban living it can be affected and degraded—rubbish gets dumped in it, weeds infest it and native plants can struggle to survive. In other words, there is a real danger that the unique character of our native bushland can be compromised, for example, by rapid growth by introduced species.

The native bushland of Australia is extremely important to our national identity and to our sense of self, and it is a critical element of our overall environment. Any Australian who has been to other parts of the world where eucalypts have been planted—and I am thinking particularly of California—will know that when they see and smell the eucalypts in those other places that immediate rush of recognition for the home that we all know and love so well. The affection that we all have for our native bushland in Australia is as true in my own electorate as it is all around the country. Indeed, I would venture to say there is a particularly fierce pride in, and affection for, our natural bushland in Bradfield and the remaining native timber, such as turpentine timber and so on. We are very fortunate in Bradfield that we have a thriving community of local bushcare groups who weekend after weekend head into their local patch of natural bushland, whether it be some of the remaining stands of blue gum high forest or some of the other unique pieces of native bushland in Bradfield.

In the second part of my remarks I particularly want to pay tribute to the work of bushcare groups in my electorate, the hardworking volunteers who remove from local bushland rubbish, refuse and noxious weeds to stop them from spreading. Volunteer organisations, such as the Bushcare groups within my electorate—and, of course, around the country—are of vital importance in maintaining the natural heritage of our native bushland. They help to preserve local biodiversity through caring for native plants and animals. They plant native seedlings and they educate and provide training workshops for those who want to know more about maintaining local bushland. Over the last couple of years, as I have come to know the local Bushcare groups better, I myself have had the benefit of being educated and being able to recognise such species as lantana, privet and trad—all of which, of course, are not native. The Bushcare groups do outstanding work and I want to acknowledge the very important contribution that they make.

In Bradfield, we are privileged and fortunate to have a very large number of Bushcare groups. In fact, so far we have identified some 88 groups. I have had the privilege of visiting several of those groups, including the Quarry Creek Bushcare Group in West Pymble, under the leadership of Bill Jones, the Geary's Way Bushcare Group in Killara, led by Hugh Lander, and the Broadway Bushcare Group in Wahroonga, led by Harry Lock. In each case, these leaders and the volunteers working with them were very generous with their time and expertise in sharing with me the stories of the work they do and showing me some of the areas which they have successfully regenerated.

I also want to acknowledge the important work of Ku-ring-gai Council and Hornsby Council in supporting the Bushcare groups and providing important resources and training to underpin their work. But, most importantly, I want to acknowledge the work of the volunteers in the Bushcare groups. The work that these volunteers do is of the highest importance in preserving our environment against the many pressures to which it is subjected by our modern lifestyle. They really do tremendously important work, and I congratulate them on all that they do.

I want to also note here the fact that there is nationally an initiative known as Bushcare's Major Day Out. I recently had the opportunity to meet with representatives of Bushcare's Major Day Out—Linda Watts, Don Wilson and Gail Giles-Gidney—who briefed me on this important national initiative. It is a national day designed to encourage all of us to take part in the restoration and maintenance of our remaining bushland. Key stakeholders in this day include Landcare Australia and, locally, Willoughby Council. I was impressed in the recent meeting that I had with Linda, Don and Gail as to the extent of their work in planning the successful national event to stimulate interest in and support for the restoration of our native bushland.

Thirdly, let me turn to the synergy between some of these effective volunteer activities to protect and improve our natural bushland and the philosophy which underpins the coalition's election commitment to build a 15,000-strong green army—an election commitment which, of course, is given concrete form in the measures contained in the bill before the House this evening. One of the inspirations for the coalition's Green Army is, of course, the very successful Green Corps program implemented in 1996 by the Howard government. That program had the purpose of employing young people in environmental projects to preserve and restore our natural and cultural environment. The thinking of the Abbott government in devising the policy measures which are contained in the bill before the House is that there is a strong case for a nationwide environmental deployment to provide young people, in particular, with access to sustainable employment that encourages hands-on, practical grassroots environmental action as a means of fixing environmental problems. Also, it provides on-the-job training and the opportunity for participants to gain important skills and put their time and effort towards qualifications in land management, park management, landscaping or horticulture.

The former Green Corps program, which I mentioned, was, unfortunately, white-anted—gutted by the previous Rudd-Gillard-Rudd Labor government. They transformed it into a program under which young long-term unemployed Australians were reclassified and continued to receive an income support payment, but actually there was very little done under the modified program—the transformed, gutted, and white-anted program—to help the environment. Labor's program did very little to motivate the long-term unemployed to move into employment. There was no element in its design of targeting those specifically interested in the conservation of our national environment. There was no specific attempt to reach out to people with that particular affinity and enthusiasm to draw them into participating in the program.

The proposed approach that the Abbott government intends to take, as is encapsulated in the measures set out in the bill before the House this evening, is very different, I am pleased to say. This government will take a very different approach to the approach of the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd Labor government. We intend that the work that will be available to those who choose to join the Green Army program will have a direct and tangible impact on their local communities and their local bushland. One of the reasons that I enthusiastically support this policy direction, as I spoke about earlier, is the successful outcomes that I have seen from a similar kind of approach in the Bushcare groups working in my own electorate and the work that is done nationally. Of course, the measures contained in this bill are different and distinct, but I simply make the point that there are some clear similarities of philosophy with the successful Green Corps program employed under the Howard government.

The Green Army is intended to undertake work of vital importance to regenerating and preserving areas of our natural bushland and environment. The kinds of projects that it might encompass include propagation and planting of native seedlings, weed control, revegetation and regeneration of local parks, habitat protection and restoration, improving water quality by cleaning up waterways, revegetation of sand dunes and mangroves, creek bank regeneration, foreshore and beach restoration, construction of boardwalks and walking tracks to protect local wildlife, and cultural heritage conservation. In the 2013 election campaign, we were able to announce a substantial number of projects likely to be carried out, or intended to be carried out, under this policy approach. Just to mention a few, there was planting riparian zones for native wildlife in the Kings Bridge to Duck Reach area of the South Esk River in Tasmania; enhancing the health of Victoria's Barham River system between Apollo Bay and the Marengo flora reserve through extensive weed removal, the revegetation of the banks of the river and the installation of pathways, viewing platforms and environmental interpretive signage; and, within the Laura Bay Conservation Park in South Australia, protecting the natural environment of the conservation reserve from soil erosion, stormwater damage and unauthorised access by random off-road vehicles.

A mere itemisation of some of these projects gives one a very real sense there is a lot to do. There are a plethora of projects through which participants in the Green Army Program will be able to do vitally important work to improve and protect our natural environment. The benefits of this program include not only the specific and very substantive and important benefits to the environment but also the benefits to its participants of acquiring vital experience and improving their own capacities and skills. As I have mentioned, a key intent of this program is to make it attractive to those many young people who have a particular affinity with our natural environment and who are motivated to make their own contribution to improve our natural environment.

The program will commence in 2014-15 with the rollout of 250 Green Army projects with approximately 2,500 people undertaking on-the-ground environmental activities. By 30 June 2017 the program will have had 1,500 Green Army projects with 15,000 placements undertaken. This program will be scaled over time. This is a program that will make a real difference to improving the environment of our communities—it will deliver real and tangible benefits for the environment, it will deliver skills to many thousands of young Australians and it will strengthen local community involvement. So, for a whole host of reasons, this is an excellent program. The measures set out in the bill are ones which I warmly commend to the House.

Kevin Hogan (Page, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in favour of the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Green Army Programme) Bill 2014. I will talk specifically about the two Green Army projects that have already been approved in the electorate of Page even though there are others that are lined up and very keen to get involved in the next round. One of the projects is managed by a group called Rekindling the Spirit with the Jubullum Local Aboriginal Land Council. This project is going to take place out at Tabulam. Rekindling the Spirit aim to regenerate 1,000 acres of land owned by the Jubullum land council at Tabulam, to de-weed the site, to regenerate the river banks and to make the property viable for small-crop farming, which was its previous use. Floods in the area recently have caused significant damage to the river banks and considerable destruction to farming areas and have resulted in the spread of noxious weeds, which now overrun productive farming areas.

Apart from regenerating the land, the community benefit of this project will be the provision of employment for the local Aboriginal community through the re-establishment of small-crop farming. The work will be done with the Rekindling the Spirit community from Lismore who specialise in providing employment and training to Indigenous youth recently released from jail, with the aim of lowering the rate of repeat offending. This will also be done with Tabulam locals. Why would anyone not be in favour of a program like that?

I have had the pleasure of knowing Greg Telford, a very proud local Indigenous man in our community who runs Rekindling the Spirit. As we all know in this chamber, because of the role we play in our communities we get to meet many people. I do not say this is lightly when I say that Greg Telford is one of the most inspirational men I have met in my community. I do not want to divulge too much of his background to you because he may not want me to do so in this chamber. Let me just say this. Greg's path in life was certainly not heading in the right direction as an older teenager. He was in trouble with the law and he certainly had some issues that he needed to deal with. He has turned his life around. He is very much a man who takes personal responsibility for his actions and for who he is. He is a strong man but at the same time he is probably one of the most loving and compassionate men that I have met. Because he is like that he exudes a strength of character and he is an inspiration to all who meet him. What has this resulted in? Greg runs programs in my community that work with Indigenous youth, many of whom have been to jail at a young age. He has broken the cycle for so many of those people in my community. It is awe-inspiring. He sees the value of this Green Army project and the role that it can play in working with youth to teach them to accept personal responsibility. That in itself says a lot for this program.

The other project in my electorate that has already been approved is with EnviTE. Many of you would have heard that Meg Nicholls is the very good operator of EnviTE in my local community. She is managing a project on Susan Island which sits just off Grafton in the middle of the Clarence River. It is a spectacular island. I invite you to visit this beautiful part of the world, Mr Deputy Speaker. You can be mowing your lawn and if you turn around you can almost see the grass growing as quickly as you have mown it. We experience quite a lot of rain, and that means we have so many things growing up there—not only things that we want to grow, but things in our environment and our community that we do not want to grow. We have a lot of noxious weeds. We have species like camphor laurel trees, which, if you do not keep control of them, can completely grow out a whole property; we have lantana and we have vines. You name it, we have it—and it grows really quickly. So, the program we are putting together on Susan Island is going to regenerate the area, it is going to get rid of a lot of these noxious weeds and it is going to make these beautiful public spaces in our community more accessible.

For me, this government—in this, as in most things—is about real solutions. This Green Army Program is about real solutions for environmental issues. Some of the most important environmental issues that we have are often literally in our backyard—whether they be noxious weeds or other things. I will go through some of the attributes of the program, how it is going to work and how, if they wish to, people can get involved.

Obviously, it is voluntary. It will recruit young people between 17 and 24 years of age who are interested in doing this type of work. If you are not interested in working outdoors and if you are not interested in getting out into the environment then obviously it is not a good thing for you to voluntarily get involved with, but a lot of people are interested in this type of thing. It is going to become Australia's largest ever environmental workforce, building to 15,000 participants by 2018.

That in itself is an exciting prospect, and I am sure you agree, Mr Deputy Speaker. There is a twofold benefit to this. Not only will it be providing real environmental solutions to real environmental problems in our communities but the spin-offs for those young men and women who get involved in this program are going to be very exciting. As with the examples I gave before, it is going to make a real difference to the environment and to local communities through projects involving restoring and protecting habitat, weeding, planting, cleaning up creeks and rivers, and restoring places of cultural heritage—again, very exciting.

So what else is this going to achieve? We are going to have young men and women, who are interested and want to get involved and learn new skills, cleaning up the environment and learning practical skills that will help them, hopefully, to move on to a job and gain skills that will be handy in their life. These people are going to get teamwork skills out of this, they are going to learn what it is like to operate in a team and they are going to get the joy of working with other people. One plus one does not necessarily equal two; these people are going to learn you can do so much more in a team that is working together. These people are going to find out about local ownership and community spirit. I mentioned before Greg from Rekindling The Spirit; we know that sometimes when people have challenges or have been to jail, as is the case with a lot of people Greg works with, they need to start to own their environment and they need to start to own some of the things that they do in their community. When they go out and clean things up, when they are involved in beautifying their community or making their community more productive, like that small crop area that they will be working with, they will own it. That ownership and involvement means that not only have they had that teamwork exposure, not only have they had the community spirit exposure, but they will be proud of it and they will learn—in some cases for the first time—what it is like to be productive and the joy of that and all the positives that go along with that.

As I said, this is going to operate for a 20- to 26-week period, with participants undertaking environmental and heritage activities. The program, as we know, is commencing almost as we talk. Two hundred and fifty on-the-ground environmental projects with 2,500 people will be undertaken in the first financial year. By 2017 there will be 1,500 projects with 15,000 placements undertaken.

In my community there have already been two successful applications, as I have said already. This program will make real, tangible differences in the communities of Tabulam and Susan Island, with the restoration work and the small crop activity they want to start in Tabulam, and the public space work in Susan Island in Grafton. The community will see real, tangible results from this project. Once we have everyone out there by 2017-18, with that enormous workforce doing real community work with real community environmental benefits, it is going to be very noticeable across all of our communities that this project is having a great effect.

What types of projects can be applied for? They can be heritage or environmental, but they can be across urban environments as well, across regional and remote Australia and public land—as I have said, one of the projects in my electorate is on Indigenous-held lands—or indeed, where there is a clear community, environmental and/or heritage benefit, they can be on private land.

The program covers costs associated with the involvement of the team; there are allowances, team supervisor wages, uniforms, safety gear, equipment such as hand tools, participant training, local transport costs and insurance. All those types of costs will be covered by the program. There are also budgets for other materials. There has been a bit of discussion about workplace health and safety. Participation in appropriate work health and safety and first aid training processes will be a minimum requirement for participants. Obviously, the type of training will vary depending on the type of work participants are doing—some of them will be using instruments that will require them to have extra training, and that will be catered for. Participants will also gain skills that are sometimes intangible. Participants may or may not learn to use a chainsaw or how to do other environmental things, but crucially they will have to learn how to communicate. They may be learning communication skills as they talk to each other or talk to other people about what they want to do or how they are going to do this together as a team—great skills for life. They will potentially have to read and interpret documentation. They will gain skills in planning, organising themselves and their team, making decisions about what to do and how they will do it, using technology and being able to learn in a range of settings, as well as learning landscaping and many other skills.

This also has the great benefit that they will potentially be able to get formal recognition for the skills that they have learnt through this. As an example, they may be able to get a certificate II in conservation and land management, if they tick the boxes for that type of certificate, or a certificate I in construction, if they are doing some basic construction work. The skills involved in getting some of those certificates are quite involved. When they leave this 26-week program, they will potentially have certificates that they can take with them that make them more work ready, which is just wonderful. They are going to get paid in alignment with the national training wage. It is an allowance, which will range from $600 odd to nearly $1,000 a fortnight, depending on their age and what their educational background is. They will be able to choose, depending on what they are on now with Newstart, which mix they want. They will complete training in first aid, which is another great skill and great certificate to have.

I commend the environment minister for this program, since it was very important to him that people with disabilities be able to join this program. While I am talking about disabilities, I want to share with the House the wonderful success we have had locally. We had a local program in March, of which I was lucky and proud enough to be the ambassador. We set a target of getting 50 people with disabilities a job in our community. We wanted to do 70 but ended up setting it at 50, because we did not want to look as though we had failed if we got 60, even though it would have been a great success. Do you know how many jobs we got in that month for people with disabilities? We found 125 jobs for people with disabilities. It was a wonderful success and a wonderful thing to be the ambassador of. This scheme is open to people with disabilities as well, which is just wonderful.

I want to close off by saying that there is a twofold win with this. People are going to be involved in helping our environment and restoring our environment and learn great skills.

Luke Howarth (Petrie, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to support the coalition's Social Security Legislation Amendment (Green Army Programme) Bill 2014. The coalition's Green Army policy will bring together the largest standing environmental workforce in the nation's history. It is a policy that will deliver real environmental and community benefits to the Petrie electorate. I am proud the coalition government is honouring its election commitment to bring the Green Army projects to life across Australia, but, more importantly, is delivering three important projects which I have been working on in my electorate.

These real and practical solutions, provided by the Green Army projects, will clean up and revegetate mangrove habitats, creek beds, river banks, and provide many other environmental conservation and remediation works. Nationwide, there are hundreds of Green Army projects, and I welcome these three to the Petrie electorate.

The coalition has a strong history of delivering for the environment. We all remember how successful the Howard government's Green Corps program was when it was established in the mid-nineties. The Howard government Green Corps program propagated and planted more than 14 million trees, erected over 8,000 kilometres of fences, eradicated 50,000 weeds and constructed upgrades in the form of 5,000 kilometres of walking tracks and boardwalks. The legislation before the House builds on those successful Green Corps programs and has developed a grass roots environmental action program that supports local heritage and environment conservation projects.

I am passionate about the Green Army projects and the benefits they will deliver for the electorate. This legislation, commencing in the new financial year, will provide young adults aged between 17 and 24 in the Petrie electorate with real on-the-job training. This is important for my electorate, given the high rate of youth unemployment that I inherited. These young people will be provided with an opportunity to gain hands-on, practical skills in carpentry, landscaping and horticulture, whilst at the same time protecting and improving the local environment.

These young people will not only gain these skills and valuable knowledge but be working as part of a group that fosters teamwork, local ownership and community spirit. They will be responsible for turning up for work each day and will learn about commitment and hard work—real transferrable work and life skills that employers are looking for in employees. A key element of the program is the provision of opportunities for vocationally orientated, accredited training delivered by a registered training organisation under the Australian Qualifications Framework. Training may be undertaken in areas such as work readiness, conservation and land management, heritage conservation, leadership, project and human resource management, and trades. I welcome the attention to detail this legislation provides.

The health and safety of Green Army participants will remain governed by relevant statutes, regulations, by-laws and requirements of the state and territory regulations in respect to workplace health and safety laws. Service providers will hold primary responsibility for the health and safety of Green Army teams while the teams undertake Green Army project activities.

Project sponsors have shared responsibility for providing a safe work environment for Green Army teams, including safe access to the site where work is being carried out. The Commonwealth will also implement a workplace health and safety audit scheme for the Green Army Program, which will involve independent workplace health and safety audits of service providers and projects. Insurance will be required to be held by all relevant parties. The Commonwealth will also take up personal accident and public or products liability insurance for Green Army participants. This is consistent with practice for the previous National Green Jobs Corps.

The bill also states that participants will not be considered workers or employees for the purpose of various common laws. So, if a person is receiving a social security pension and the person's partner is receiving a Green Army allowance, some or all of that allowance may not be counted as ordinary income in working out the person's rate of social security pension.

The Green Army projects are great for the Petrie electorate. I must say that I was terribly disappointed when I heard the member for Melbourne speak on this bill, because he made it quite clear that he would not be supporting it. I find it amazing that the member for Melbourne, who represents the Greens, is not willing to support the Green Army project. Whilst I do not have much in common with the Greens, I would have thought they would support this project. I think workers are well protected and I think it will give real practical benefits in each of our electorates. It is something that is definitely worth supporting.

Dan Tehan (Wannon, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They are more pink than green.

Luke Howarth (Petrie, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Hear, hear! The Petrie electorate's Green Army projects will have three supervisors and up to 27 participants. This means a total of 30 people will gain valuable, life-long skills and friendships. Projects in my electorate have been guided by local community needs. I encourage environmental groups in my electorate, which I have been working with closely, and others right throughout the electorate to let me know if there are other areas in the Petrie electorate that can benefit from Green Army projects. We will put together a project and get it happening for the benefit of the environment and for the skills that local young people will develop when working on these projects.

I want to detail the three projects, as I believe they will make a real difference to the electorate. The three projects are the North Lakes Reserve project, Osprey House and the Hays Inlet Eco-path. The North Lakes Reserve project will ensure noxious weeds and trees are removed and native trees and vegetation are replanted to enhance the environment for the enjoyment of not just the local people but also the animals living in the area. North Lakes and Mango Hill are some of the fastest-growing areas in Australia. There is a large reserve there—hundreds of acres—where this project will be implemented. Not only will it remove weeds and have native trees and shrubs replanted but there is also a local freshwater creek and habitat that runs through the area and this will be cleaned up. The creek will be restocked with native fish to help provide a biological mosquito control element to the Green Army project.

The second project in my electorate is Osprey House. Osprey House is on the Pine River at Griffin, also known as Dohles Rocks. This project will rehabilitate the northern brackish water lagoon, replant native trees and vegetation and build a timber boardwalk and birdwatching house. It will also provide education benefits to the local community. Again, this project allows Green Army participants to learn valuable carpentry skills, landscaping and horticulture, as well as an understanding of the brackish water ecosystem and local koala habitats. The duration of this project is expected to be six months.

The third Green Army project in Petrie electorate is the Hays Inlet Eco-path. This project will improve the health of the natural landscape and provide greater access for the community and tourists to enjoy the environment. This project is based at Redcliffe. There is a large tourism element in that part of the electorate. It is also close to parklands. It will also improve the environment along the foreshore of Saltwater Creek at Hays Inlet. This project is adjacent to the Clontarf Beach State High School. This school has a very active marine education program that includes a state-of-the-art eco-centre. The boardwalk in this project will give students and teachers easy access to the site, which will create an outdoor classroom. This project is expected to run for 26 weeks, giving participants training in environmental management through revegetation, restoration and weeding work as well as carpentry skills.

I would like to personally thank the Redcliffe Environmental Forum, the Mango Hill and North Lakes Environment Group and the Osprey House team for their tremendous contribution in helping me to establish these Green Army projects in the electorate. It was their knowledge that provided the technical aspects for my submissions to the department for the three projects. These hardworking environmental groups are specialists. They live, work and volunteer in the community and they understand the environmental wants and needs of locals. It was important to me to ensure that these projects had the full support of the community and the local environment groups.

Personally, I am looking forward to being part of future projects that will no doubt be created as a result of the Green Army program—projects that will be inspired by locals who want to care for the beautiful landscapes that surround us and who also want to gain new-found environmental knowledge and skills. As a community we have the responsibility to protect our environment, now and for future generations, and we should not underestimate the part these small local projects play in that. Since being elected I have thoroughly enjoyed working with community groups throughout the electorate.

The bill's overall importance lies in the outline of the details regarding the Green Army allowance—a key factor of these projects to get young people working and give them the experience they need. The specifications presented in the Social Security Legislation (Green Army Programme) Amendment Bill 2014 offer the fairest and most viable means of distributing the Green Army Allowance. This legislation is a win-win for so many in the community. I believe, however, that the most important aspects of these projects is the relationships these young adults will form with each other as a group. Life is certainly about relationships and creating meaningful ones with each other. They will be able to use these skills in the workplace, as well.

I want to see local youths from all backgrounds participating in Green Army projects throughout the electorate. I want Indigenous Australians, school leavers, gap year students, graduates and unemployed job seekers all to take part in these projects, should they choose. If they have a love for the environment, have a good work ethic and want to work as part of a team, then these projects will suit them well. I support the Social Security Legislation (Green Army Programme) Amendment Bill, and I must say it is great to be part of the coalition government, providing good local environmental outcomes for each of our electorates.

Kelly O'Dwyer (Higgins, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to 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.

Dan Tehan (Wannon, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They are 'pink', not 'green'!

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

My colleague calls out that it is because they are 'pink' not 'green'—well might he make that comment.

In conclusion, I am delighted to speak in favour of this initiative. In my electorate it will have a very practical consequence. The Stonnington City Council, the Yarra Riverkeeper Association and the Friends of Gardiners Creek Valley will all work together to make the very first of our initiatives of the Green Army come to fruition. I look forward to reporting to the House the many positive impacts, not only for the local environment but also for all of the young people who will be involved in this initiative—the skills they will learn, the training they will receive and the friendships they will make.

Nola Marino (Forrest, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Green Army Program is a key coalition government commitment that we took to the 2013 election. It is a voluntary initiative and it will commence from July 2014. The program will see the recruitment of young people, aged 17 to 24, who are interested in protecting their local environment, while gaining hands-on practical skills, training and experience. It will become Australia's largest ever environmental workforce, building to 15,000 participants by 2018 and capable of delivering on-ground environmental projects.

This program has the capacity to make a real difference to the environment and to the local communities through projects such as restoring and protecting habitat, weeding, planting, cleaning up creeks and rivers and restoring cultural heritage places. The coalition believes in encouraging practical, hands-on grassroots environmental action as a means of fixing environmental problems. It also believes in tapping into the knowledge of local communities, encouraging them to identify and fix their own local problems and to be a part of the ongoing management—that buy-in, that commitment in the longer term.

Clean land is essential for a cleaner environment. Our plan is focused on cleaning up and revegetating urban and regional environments, and other complementary reforms to strengthen natural resource management and delivery right across Australia in land care. The Green Army itself complements the government's direct action approach to climate change. This provides the opportunity for individuals, communities, organisations and companies to help address our environmental challenges and to reduce our emissions on the lowest possible cost basis. Ultimately the Green Army builds on the Howard government's successful Green Corps program that was established in 1996 to employ young people on environmental projects to preserve and restore our natural and cultural environment.

The opportunity that we have with this particular initiative to improve the environmental outcomes should not be underestimated. Just think of 15,000 young people at work. I was fortunate enough to visit the young people who were part of the original Green Corps programs. It was a great initiative. There was a project in Bunbury, in my electorate, that helped to restore healthy ecosystems, to assist with issues such as salinity and erosion. The project enhanced the biodiversity, it controlled weeds and feral animals, and it increased native vegetation. In addition, it enabled the young people involved to gain a better awareness of their actual community itself. That was probably something they had never even thought much about before. It gave them hands-on experience in fencing, revegetation, tree planting and—very importantly in my part of the world—weed control.

One of the things I saw was the sense of pride that they found in themselves. It gave them confidence—that practical knowledge of the environment—that they could actually do things they had never thought they would or never thought they would be capable of. What I saw in those young people was a real change, an absolute change.

I thought that the best way for me to judge this, how much this meant to these young people and what it did for them was to meet them when they first started their program. So before they actually started the work I went to see the launch, if you like, of the program and the group involved. Then I saw them at the end of the program. I saw the growth of these young people as individuals and what turned out to be so frequently their sheer enjoyment from having been involved in something they would never have had access to otherwise.

One thing that came across very clearly to me was their pride in starting and finishing something. Often for the first time in their lives, they had started a project and they had finished it. This gave them opportunities in pursuing an alternative career that they had never thought of. Some of the young people were actually looking at taking on traineeships or a possible career with a local council, or traineeships with environmental groups and organisations.

The other thing they enjoyed, for so many of them who were based in urban areas, was the experience of getting dirty, of actually wearing the work gear and the work boots, and of actually physically working and getting dirty. For others, the enjoyment was simply that they found they enjoyed being part of the team. For some of them it was the first time they had been part of a team. They were doing something new and useful.

Some of the things they did—like the river restoration, the wetland revegetation, the remnant vegetation management, the macroinvertebrate sampling and stormwater management—were just practical things. I saw the growth of the individuals, the new skills and the confidence in their own ability and their far greater awareness of the environment around them.

Like the Green Army, this program provided—and the Green Army will provide—an alternative learning method for some young Australians who are not necessarily suited to doing their learning in a classroom or a standard environment. They are the things that we take for granted, perhaps. This was a type of program that gave great encouragement to young people to do things differently, to learn in a different environment and to use manual, practical skills. We have so many of these great young people who do this so well.

I was delighted to see them at the beginning of the program and at the end to see the changes in these young people. They loved what they did. They grew as people. They saw another career and training opportunity. For some of them, the interesting thing was that they sometimes learned to take instructions for the first time. I found how they responded to that was just so good. I can see some great benefits in this Green Army program. There are environmental benefits and benefits to the individuals.

Our Australian ecosystems are under siege from a range of invasive plant and animal species. This is a real challenge in my electorate, because some of them have become quite common. Feral animals are rife in certain areas; weed species have been overtaking natural ecosystems. What a great idea and a great job for a Green Army. For instance, we have arum lilies along the coast infesting Busselton, Capel and the Margaret River regions. Blackberry, for instance, continues to run rampant in state forests around Balingup and Donnybrook. Cotton bush is unfortunately becoming quite endemic in farming land around Harvey, Dardanup, Capel and Donnybrook-Balingup shires.

I can see some really good work here for some of those 15,000 Green Army participants. They are the part of the workforce that could focus on eradication or control. There is no shortage of work to be done. We see a range of issues right throughout Australia. It is not just in my part of the world. We do need to get serious about invasive species. It is also an opportunity to reinvigorate native ecosystems.

In my part of the world, I can see the Green Army perhaps directed towards managing some of the remaining native wildlife in some of the isolated pockets of vegetation in wildlife corridors. They could even assist with some of the great work that is being done by our Coastcare groups. I could see that being enhanced. Some very good environmental outcomes could potentially be achieved.

It could be and will be a major contributor to the work of climate change adaptation. I think this is a practical way of dealing with climate change adaptation. That is why we need a flexible and adaptable program, such as the Green Army. I would like to see a primary focus on future-proofing vulnerable ecosystems in the Green Army Program. Systems like those are found right throughout the south west of WA.

We have, in my part of the world, one of the world's recognised environmental biodiversity hotspots. It is one of those. It is internationally recognised. There are the jarrah forests in my part of the world; we know about the effects of drying. The jarrah forests and karri forests of the region are susceptible to change, especially from invasive species.

There may be a way to involve volunteers from the Green Army in perhaps something like marine ecology, such as assisting with the development of artificial reefs off the Western Australian coast, which is constantly changing. Australia has a strong history of delivering local environmental programs through all sorts of programs. One of them is Landcare. These programs were developed with strong links to Australian landholders, especially our farming community. The resulting synergy has provided sound local outcomes—local outcomes that work on the ground, and people who live and work in the community are committed to the longer term and stay involved with projects. We know that farmers are the primary Landcare group. It is something to repeat in this place because this fact is frequently overlooked. Our farmers manage vast areas of Australia; in fact, they manage 61 per cent of the nation's land area. It is a statistic that perhaps the member for Grey would know because he comes from a similar area to me. Ninety-three per cent of farmers practise land care on their properties. We often underestimate and undervalue their commitment and their efforts in relation to land care and to the environment.

This program is expected to be delivered by service providers who will be responsible for recruiting, establishing and managing the Green Army teams across Australia. They will work alongside and with communities. What a great result: you have local communities involved with local young people on local projects. I hope that a number of these young people from a particular community go on to work in that community and take an ongoing active role—they will not want to see what they have done go backwards. They will not want to lose what they have achieved and they will develop a direct commitment to their community and the local environment. There will be things they have never thought of and things they will have taken for granted as they passed by. They will gain a lot of knowledge and they will get to work day after day with some wonderful people on simple projects. We have some of the most amazing people with incredible amounts of local knowledge. That knowledge often cannot be taught and cannot be bought; it comes from intergenerational transfer. I see this over and over in our farming group—knowledge about particular land and what happens to it over the various seasons. I am hoping more of that wealth of knowledge will be passed on to the younger generation through this type of program. That sort of knowledge is incredibly valuable not just to the individual farmer but also to the community. We need this local information and we need it to be enduring.

I have many reasons to support this program, especially for the environmental benefits. The thought of 15,000 young people around Australia involved in local projects, working with local people and communities and what they will gain from that and what the environment will gain from their involvement is tremendous. This is a great opportunity and I hope many of our young people take it. I know that Australia will benefit from that.

John Cobb (Calare, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I enjoyed hearing the member for Forrest talking about what will work in her electorate, and she is quite right. As somebody who had a lot to do with the old Green Corps program, I have no doubt that this is going down the right track. Nobody—neither my best friend nor my worst enemy—would ever accuse me of being a greenie, though I am a person of common sense. Looking after land, teaching people how to fence and what to weed and how to get rid of it, all that is common sense. This program will look after land around towns in the main, and that again is common sense. The Social Security Legislation Amendment (Green Army Programme) Bill was, as we heard from this side of the House, a key commitment by our government during the election. It will be a great program. It will put together the largest environmental workforce to deliver projects to the tune of 15,000 participants over the next six years. I hope it closely replicates what happened with the Green Corps. From the other side we have heard some falsehoods, which I will come back to.

I would like to talk a little about what we committed to in Calare during the election and which will take effect from July. Last August I joined with local councils to announce six projects for Calare, including three for the Bathurst Regional Council area, and one each for Blayney, Carbonne and Orange. That represents around $1 million direct funding for Calare with local projects that have been identified by groups and councils. It includes things like cleaning up river banks, creek beds, regenerating remnant vegetation, fencing off areas, clearing up rubbish and weeds—weeds in particular are a huge issue throughout Australia—looking after habitat and controlling pest animals. Pest animal control is a big issue and habitat care—that will please the greenies—is another big issue. We have more than our share of pest animals.

The Green Army Program will target the Blayney Road Common, Mount Panorama precinct, Molong Creek, Boree Creek, Mandagery Creek and Belubula River; creek lines at Dakers Oval, Blayney; Pound Flat, Carcoar and Mandurama Ponds; and the Ploughmans Wetlands and Gosling Creek Reserve precinct. The program will help not only sites around Calare but also local young people who will join the Green Army, get training and skills and learn to work as part of a team. It will commence on 1 July and there will be 250 teams in the first year.

This will depend, as the success of Green Corps did, on having down-to-earth, experienced men who have been involved in agriculture and other things to oversee this. It does not take someone out of university with a wealth of degrees; it takes someone who cares and is good with kids, particularly. Quite often for those kids it will be the first job they have ever had. I assume that in this case that will be the norm. This program will teach them to work as part of a team. It will teach them to work with someone who is good with their hands, experienced, knowledgeable and caring. Those were the kinds of guys we had to oversee Green Corps. It requires a lot of cooperation from councils, in particular, as well as the right person to oversee and lead the team. The feedback I have received in Calare has been overwhelmingly positive for the reasons I have mentioned. It will provide meaningful work for young people and teach them skills. Hopefully, they will gather skills that they will be able to use to make it easier for them to find a job and be part of a team.

I was somewhat disappointed, to be blunt, to find a rather disturbing letter in one of my local newspapers written by an employee of the legal firm Slater & Gordon. I am sure some of you have heard of Slater & Gordon; it has become quite famous—or maybe infamous—in the last couple of years for reasons I will not go into now. Slater & Gordon claimed in the letter that Green Army participants would not be covered by any workers' compensation scheme. Further, the letter went on to say that young workers risk suffering a serious injury which might mean they do not return to work. This is a load of rubbish. It could not be further from the truth. It was disappointing, although perhaps not surprising, that Slater & Gordon did not take the time to get the facts on the program right. I obviously wrote to the paper to correct the record. I pointed out that the health and safety of participants engaged in the program will remain governed by relevant state statutes, regulations, by-laws and requirements in work health and safety laws. I cannot believe it was ever suggested they would not. However, perhaps Slater & Gordon had other reasons for making those utterances.

Further, insurance will be required to be held by all relevant parties. I note that the Commonwealth will also take out personal accident and public liability insurance for Green Army participants. So I am not quite sure where Slater & Gordon were coming from. This is an important point: if a participant is injured, if such a thing should happen while they are involved in a Green Army project, medical costs incurred that are not covered by Medicare will be covered by personal accident insurance to the maximum benefit payable. Participants will continue to be paid their allowance if they require time off from their placement as a result of their injury, in line with the personal leave provisions provided under the Green Army Program.

It was also claimed that participants will be underpaid for the work they do in the Green Army. Again, that is completely untrue. The rate of pay for Green Army participants is significantly higher than the rate they would get on Newstart. Pay rates for the Green Army allowance align with the national training wage. They range from $608.40 to $987 per fortnight, depending on a participant's age and educational level. The pay rate is significantly higher than Newstart, which ranges between $450 and $690 per fortnight, and youth allowance, which ranges from $226.80 to $690 per fortnight. You would think that a legal firm like Slater & Gordon, who specialise, as I understand it, in industrial relations and the Labor Party, would have those figures right at their fingertips. It is an extraordinary thing for them to accuse the government of.

Green Corps was a great program, and I am sure this will be too. It will be great for young people who have left school at whatever age and are not sure what they want to do. They will be able to work as part of a team with a mature, experienced person who will be able to teach them. The help and engagement of councils is absolutely imperative. I know they will be involved. They were in the past and they will be again. I commend the bill to the House because, from my experience, I believe this will be a great program.

Rowan Ramsey (Grey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Green Army initiative is both practical environmentalism and an employment training program. I think that it ticks the boxes on both fronts. I will start by talking about practical environmentalism. It is right and proper that we should be concerned with the big issues of our day. We as a nation should move to curtail our CO2 emissions. We should be concerned about our ocean areas and marine parks and, where appropriate, protect areas that need protecting. But it is also appropriate that we concentrate on local issues. In many cases, they are very pressing.

Australia, for instance—and that is the country we are talking about; it is where we live—is overrun with feral animals and pest plants, all introduced. Since settlement in 1788, we have lost over 100 species to extinction and there are over 1,500 under threat at the moment. That is mainly due to loss of habitat but also fire, flood and invasive plants and animals. I will just concentrate on some of those invasive plants and animals for a moment. For instance, rabbits are considered to be a dead and buried issue for the general population; it was something that bothered Australia in the fifties and sixties and we dealt with it with the myxomatosis virus. It was a very successful virus. But, like all populations, the resistance levels grew within that population. Then, about 10 years ago, we got another breather on the rabbits—it was called calicivirus. The regeneration of native shrubbery and other plants was astonishing. We saw plants in the Simpson Desert that we had not seen in certain areas for over 100 years, and that was basically because the rabbits just kept nipping off the shoots as they came up. It is an astonishing thing that a seed could lie there for that long and then bear fruit. We have seen that kind of regeneration, particularly in the arid zones where the calicivirus has been particularly effective. These plants are very susceptible to that type of grazing pressure. But, once again, these animals are becoming resistant and we are looking for the next level of control.

We deal with camels throughout the arid regions. There are over one million camels that we do not need in Australia. There are wild dogs. Now we are talking about something that is debatable as to whether it is native or not. It has been here for about 30,000 years, but it was certainly introduced. It is a species that has crossbred with what we call town camp dogs, which are causing enormous damage throughout the arid regions and are moving down into the agricultural regions of South Australia. Also, I know that south of Canberra, in fact in the ranges, wild dog packs are causing increasing concern. We have had cane toads, foxes, cats, mice. There are a whole plethora of other animals that cause us enormous problems across Australia.

On a vegetative front, there are things like buffel grass. It may be something that Australians in general have not heard about, but as it is moving south from the tropical regions, where it was planted for cattle feed, it has moved into the arid zones of South Australia and is destroying native plants. Buffel grass burns so hot that it can crack rocks. It burns all the other species out. It is a prolific grower. It burns easily and burns the rest of the vegetation away. It burns mulga trees, for instance. There is also bridal creeper, boxthorn and palm trees. I am just thinking about a creek not so far from Port Pirie where I had one of my electorate offices. A landholder had obviously had a homestead on the creek at some stage and had put a palm tree in the garden—and now the creek is infested with them. There are also willows and pine trees. There are a whole range of agricultural pest plants that, through various other arms of government across Australia, we make difficult for landholders to control by restrictions on the tools they can use to do that.

There are a whole plethora of things out there for a green army to do. But the other thing a green army does is provide training. It also provides an opportunity. This program is voluntary and it runs for six months, so it is a genuine work experience and gives practical skill to those who participate in it. It is aimed at the 17 to 24 age group. The skills progression is good in this program, but one of the highest things that I rate in it is the work experience. You can imagine if you were fronting up to a potential employer and he asked to see your CV. You are 21 years old and there is not a mark on it since you left you school. It really is difficult for the employer to give you a go, because they look at it and think, 'This bloke has not been getting out of bed for four years'—that is what they think. They may be completely wrong, of course, but it just makes it so much more difficult. If a person gets an opportunity in something like a green army project, they can say: 'There was six months work. I have an employment record and I have a reference that goes with that employment record.' So it is an opportunity for people to say that they are work-ready and can perform in an open workplace. That will not, in all cases, unlock the door, but it is a chance—and I am all in favour of giving people a chance.

We know that youth unemployment is climbing. The Brotherhood of St Laurence gave us some figures recently. They named Whyalla and Port Lincoln in my electorate as part of the outback. I will not contest their figures, but I do not call Whyalla and Port Lincoln part of the outback. It is in their report, so I presume then that you can include places like Port Pirie and Port Augusta—they are all in my electorate. The Brotherhood of St Laurence tell us that youth unemployment has increased by 67 per cent in the last two years and that it is now running at 15.4 per cent. This is a serious problem and this. So this is what the Green Army initiative is about: the fact that we have a practical environmentalism linked with an employment training program.

I was fortunate enough in the election period to have three programs approved for my electorate. I have one in Port Lincoln, where we will be developing an existing drainage reserve through the town—an open significant linear space for the city, which will enhance a beautiful part of Port Lincoln that has been overrun with weeds. There will be lawn and irrigation installations, trail creation, planting and a new shelter—all good things for kids to get their teeth into. In Crystal Brook, not very far from Port Pirie, there is a project that has been put up by the Bowman Park Management Committee. Bowman Park was one of the original homesteads when South Australia was first surveyed, and it covered a good portion of land. It would be a very valuable property if it were still together now. It was set up in about 1900. The homestead still exists and there is a park around it. A green army project will make the park more suitable for community use. It will improve biodiversity conditions through weed removal, cleaning up the creeks and picnic areas—it is much the same as we hear about the rest of the green army projects around the nation. It will be good. It will provide a great training opportunity, at least for those who participate.

In Port Augusta, there will be a play space redevelopment in conjunction with arid smart plant propagation. I might point out that Port Augusta is the home of the Arid Lands Botanic Garden. For any of you who might pass through Port Augusta at some stage, I can only suggest that you go and have a look at it. What you can do with very little rainfall and Australian plants is actually quite remarkable. They will be developing these play spaces around the city. I have one more project, which perhaps I will finish at a later time.

Debate interrupted.