Susan Templeman (Macquarie, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have just had the privilege of meeting three students taking part in the Rotary Adventure in Citizenship: Jordan Goehner-Drewe, Marnie Larden and Isabelle Carolan, who are up in the chamber watching this now. Jordan is a Penrith Anglican College student and an environmental warrior. Many of the words I say today are actually his words. He was raised on his mother's phrase, 'Think globally, act locally.' He has raised with me the issue of phosphates and notes that the Murray-Darling Basin and the Great Barrier Reef are being relentlessly damaged. These waterways face fertilisers, pesticides and dish-washing detergents coming into them, all sharing a common toxic factor: phosphates.

Jordan, like me, is lucky enough to live in the World Heritage Blue Mountains National Park. He is only a five-minute walk to the precious Glenbrook Creek, which, unknown to many, houses one of the three remaining self-sustaining Macquarie perch colonies in New South Wales. This fish is currently listed by the law of the Commonwealth as highly endangered and it is a victim of these toxic phosphates. Jordan wants to see change to protect these fish and to protect our fragile ecosystem. He wants to see new legislation to ban phosphates within dish-washing tablets and detergents, as the United States and Europe already have. Jordan is calling on this parliament to act, and I'll be doing what I can to help him see his vision become a reality.