Ann Sudmalis (Gilmore, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last week I had the amazing pleasure of going down to my region—which, as we all know, has got high unemployment—and announcing some of the projects that have been put into that area by the government to try to reduce the youth unemployment in my region. The Eurobodalla botanic gardens, with Gail Stevens, got quite an amount of money to fix up their heritage-listed herbarium and improve their visitor centre. A nature-based tourism concept with Eurobodalla Shire Council is going to be funded. There is a training platform for building inspectors to figure out how better to determine whether buildings have termites—and it's an online program, so that's a ripper. It's going to increase that by about 10 employees. Sea Breeze Aviation is going to double up their facilities so that they can have more people there, more planes being serviced and more people staying over, so that's fabulous. Then there is the shellfish hatchery, which would have to be the highlight of the entire space. We know how the spats from Tassie are a little bit worrisome, and the spats from Port Stevens are also a little bit worrisome, so within 12 to 18 months we'll have a state-of-the-art hatchery for oysters and mussels in particular but also for scallops and abalone, which will be fabulous. We're going to have a health training facility to look at where all the holes are for which we need people with the council. And Ultimate campers have got a new-age, special caravan that can go all sorts of different places, and they'll be funded as well. We're going to get a huge input of employment opportunities. It's great investment in the region, and the people of the Eurobodalla should be rightfully proud of this.