Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Hansard source

The Green Army Program has many benefits to the local environment. It has many diverse benefits, such as: propagating and planting of native seedlings; weed control; revegetation and regeneration of local parks; habitat protection and restoration; improving water quality by cleaning up waterways; creek bank, foreshore and beach restoration; revegetation of sand dunes and mangroves; constructing walking tracks to protect local wildlife; and cultural heritage conservation. We have more than 240 teams on the ground, and that is close to some 2,000 young people working on environmental projects.

In Senator Lindgren's home state of Queensland, there are around 57 projects on the ground at present. These are helping to improve water quality on the Great Barrier Reef, helping fire recovery on North Stradbroke Island and helping rehabilitation of cassowary corridors at Mission Beach—and the Brisbane river restoration projects.

All of the projects are delivering practical environmental benefits in the state of Queensland and right around Australia—mobilising young people to do so.