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

It is wonderful to be here in the chamber with you this morning to talk about the Green Army and what a wonderful project the Green Army is. It is a federal government commitment of $525 million budgeted over four years. The program will encourage, and is encouraging, practical action to help local environments and conservation projects across Australia, providing training to 15,000 young Australians by 2018. That is practical, on-the-ground environmental training for 15,000 young Australians by 2018.

Madam Deputy Speaker Griggs, I would like to inform you that the program is up and running in Wannon and is running successfully. I have been and visited two of the projects. One is the Basalt to Bay Landcare Network project, which is doing wonderful work on the protection of endangered species and ecological communities and is increasing remnant health and resilience of some of the native flora and fauna. Participants have been undertaking fencing, weed control and revegetation surveys, and have been working with Landcare and project stakeholders. There have been great participants—young individuals who have taken on this challenge with relish. I would like to mention their names: Jesse Wilson, Deniz Fidan, Alexandra Edwards, Luke Doeven, Alex Edwards, Joseph Atkinson, Alex Kydd and Nick Grae. They have all taken on the responsibilities of being part of the Basalt to Bay Green Army project and have done a terrific job. It was wonderful to visit these young people and to see the enjoyment they were getting from being participants in this wonderful project.

The Greening the Goldfields project in Maryborough has had equal success in weed control, erosion control, revegetation and working with Landcare and project stakeholders, and, once again, it has involved wonderful young Australians: Clint Chandler, Harley Rogers, Nathan Wilson, James Fenton, Kris Goodman, Tye Bakker, Kade Bench, Josh Stanton and Luke Jansen—all doing important work for the local environment and getting wonderful training skills in doing it. To see the self-satisfaction, self-confidence and joy that they are getting from actively participating in this training and looking forward to using this to prepare themselves to go on and get future employment shows how successful this program is. I congratulate the minister for the job that he has done in promoting and encouraging the Green Army in this nation.