Andrew Southcott (Boothby, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last week I launched one of the first Green Army projects in South Australia, just down the road from my office, at the Living Kaurna Cultural Centre in Marion. The project involves grassy woodland protection and restoration in the Field and Sturt River catchments and will see real environmental benefits for my local area. The Green Army is first and foremost an environmental program. In this case, young people will be removing weeds and revegetating to create landscape linkages and to improve habitat for endangered woodland birds like the black-chinned honeyeater. The City of Marion has had a long experience with Green Corps, the previous program, and I would like to congratulate the leadership of the City of Marion, Felicity-ann Lewis, and Workskil, who are delivering this program.

One of the things that really struck me was the huge amount of enthusiasm the young participants had for the project and the Green Army concept. I was told that competition to be involved was quite fierce. For example, my electorate of Boothby is in Adelaide's southern suburbs, but I spoke to one young woman who lives in the northern suburbs of Adelaide who wanted to be part of the Green Army so much that she takes two trains every morning and evening to get to the project site, a round-trip commute of about four hours. This is a fantastic local initiative. I congratulate Marion council for getting behind the Green Army and I encourage other councils—City of Onkaparinga, who I have already spoken to; Mitcham council; and Holdfast Bay council—to also support and get behind the Green Army initiative.