Jason Wood (La Trobe, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to talk about the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Green Army Programme) Bill 2014. It is a fantastic program and initiative being launched by the government in July this year. The policy covers two things that I am very passionate about: one is the environment, and the other is youth welfare. In my electorate of La Trobe, we are now committed to four Green Army projects: a nature reserve mountain biking network, National Rhododendron Gardens in Olinda, the south-eastern Dandenong Ranges protection program and Shangri-La Wildlife Shelter. I will now look at each of those programs separately.

First of all is the nature reserve mountain biking network. Mountain bike trails attract a large group of enthusiastic participants, and the Green Army proposal will look at developing crown land in La Trobe to make environmentally sensitive changes for this to happen.

The Beaconsfield Nature Conservation Reserve is one location being considered, along with other crown land in Cockatoo and Gembrook. The project will see the construction of sustainable trails as well as weed control and the preservation of heritage. We will work with the Cardinia Environmental Coalition and the wider community to build an internationally approved, staggered-loop design mountain bike track system. The community will benefit in many ways from this—improved fitness and health of local residents, improved level of wellbeing as the people connect to nature, and benefits to local traders from the influx of trail users.

The environment will also benefit in many ways, as building sustainable trails will guarantee long-term protection of the land. Mountain bike riders have shown themselves to be highly motivated and willing to put many volunteer hours back into the areas they ride. Weed control will also be improved and regulated with maintenance on the trail. I would like to thank Malcolm Doswell for submitting this proposal and hope that other organisations—like the local Friends group, the Fat Tyre Flyers Mountain Bike Club, Full Gas Pedallers, Yarra Ranges Mountain Bikers, the Dirtriders Mountain Bike Club and the Cardinia Environmental Coalition will also greatly benefit from this Green Army project.

Another planned Green Army project is for the National Rhododendron Gardens in Olinda. The lovely town of Olinda is in the Dandenong Ranges, and nearby are the iconic National Rhododendron Gardens—and I love these gardens. There are more than 15,000 rhododendrons in the gardens, and they share the stage with 12,000 azaleas, 3,000 camellias and, amazingly, 250,000 daffodils. Located only a short distance from Olinda, the 100-acre gardens offer a fantastic opportunity to see one of the region's premier garden sites. Thousands of people visit these gardens each year, especially since the Liberal state government was elected and removed the entry fee for admission. The Green Army project will assist the rhododendron society to maintain and further develop the 100 acres of botanical gardens, the main focus being on weeding of invasive species, care and protection of native fauna through the construction of bird breeding boxes and the construction of walking paths or boardwalks. The community will benefit by making this unique asset in La Trobe even better. In October each year we have the internationally recognised Blossom Festival. A number of Japanese and Chinese tourists attend the gardens for this, and it is quite spectacular. I would like to thank Mike Hammer, who initially put this application in back in 2010 and has been a great ambassador for the gardens. I would also like to thank all of the other committee members and all of the volunteers who help in the rhododendron gardens.

The next project is the south-eastern Dandenong Ranges protection program, which will greatly benefit from the Green Army project. This project will focus around the Dandenong Ranges, in the southern and eastern areas surrounding the iconic Puffing Billy corridor. This corridor provides an opportunity to establish a significant biolink stretching from the Dandenong Ranges to the west to the Bunyip State Park in the east. These works will complement works already being undertaken by environmental volunteer groups, including the community weed alliance in the Dandenongs, the Southern Ranges Environment Alliance and Puffing Billy. It will build on the works of the Urban Fringe Weed Management Initiative, which combines the efforts of council, Melbourne Water, and Parks Victoria. Tasks will include revegetation, woody weed control, wandering trad control—and I will talk a bit more about that later—nest box insulation, and monitoring and treatment of climbing ivy. It will encapsulate a range of awareness and training opportunities for private landowners.

The project will improve the tourism and the amenity values of the iconic Dandenong Ranges and will support the work of many environmental groups, providing valuable ground assistance. It will also improve connectivity of multiple-use trails in the parks, bushland reserves and trackside properties of the Puffing Billy railway. The project will begin to deliver a consistent and effective weed management program for private landowners adjacent to public land managers. I would like to thank the following people for their continued efforts in weed control in the area and support of the Green Army proposal: Bill Incoll, Jane Hollands, Darcy Duggan, Xander Groverland and Glenn Brooks-MacMillan. Glenn is the facilitator of the Southern Ranges Environmental Alliance. I recently had a great meeting with the team up in Ferny Creek, off Jacka Street, where a great initiative took place. They would approach landowners saying that they had, for example, holly or sycamores or wandering trad or ivy on their properties, and the group then worked with the private residents to remove those weeds. Why did this take place? If it had not, the weeds would have flourished into the Sherbrooke Forest next door.

I had a good chat to Phil Hastings, a local resident in Ferny Creek, who knows a lot about weeds. Phil is also a member of the Ferny Creek Horticultural Society, and he had a fence of ivy in his backyard. Each year he would do the right thing and cut back all of the ivy before it flowered, but the problem is that you cannot get every bud—and then it goes into the forest. So Phil allowed the group to remove this ivy from his fence, and it is looking fantastic. The next project is the Shangri-La Wildlife Shelter, run by Rodney and Tina Hudson-Davies, with whom I have shared a great number of years of friendship and work. When I hear the opposition say that the Abbott government does not care about the environment, can I say that in my past experience in La Trobe, the Labor Party has done nothing for the environment. A classic example is the Shangri-La Wildlife Shelter, which had never received any state, council or federal funding until Malcolm Turnbull became the environmental minister and we announced $25,000, I think it was, to help build shelters and fences up there. The shelters provide rehabilitation services for injured animals, and this project will focus on stopping dog attacks, which have sadly killed kangaroos and other animals. A brush fence is to be built, and some more pens for the injured animals are to be constructed.

The Green Army will not only make significant contributions to the betterment of our environment but will assist our young to gain hands-on practical experience that will improve their employment prospects. The coalition Green Army policies plan to bring 15,000 people—the largest-standing environmental workforce in Australia's history—to provide real and practical solutions to cleaning up river banks and creeks and revegetating sand dunes and mangrove habitats, among the other environmental conservation work being carried out.

The Green Army is also about training for young people. Aside from improving the environment—and that is obviously the message in La Trobe—participants will receive a training wage, invaluable work skills and formal training. In Year 12 I completed my outdoor education course at Boronia Secondary College. I learned a lot of environmental skills—in fact, I remember working on the ground at Ferntree Gully in Dandenong Ranges National Park pulling out weeds and caring for the environment. The group I worked with ended up doing very well. I think training in the environment, and getting hands-on experience, is a great initiative, and the minister must be congratulated for that.

The program will commence from July 2014 with the rollout of 250 Green Army projects and approximately 2,500 people undertaking on the ground environmental activities in 2014-15. I cannot see why the Labor Party are so strongly opposed to this. Up to nine eligible participants and at least one team supervisor will constitute a Green Army. Participants will be eligible to receive a Green Army allowance while participating in the program, and will have the opportunity to undertake training.

Again, when the Labor Party implemented their pink batts scheme it was an absolute disaster. I find it quite ironic that the Labor Party, in opposition, has the audacity to lecture us on workplace training, when under their pink batts scheme four young people sadly had their lives taken and there were over 250 house fires. Why? It was through sheer incompetence. We now have a royal commission looking at this. The pink batts scheme was such a bad program. I know they may be trying to cover their tracks by blaming the Abbott government for this Green Army project, but remember this: they cannot look themselves in the mirror without judging themselves for completely failing on the pink batts program.

The Green Army Program will initially target participants between the ages of 17 and 24 years. Why would the Labor Party be strongly opposed to seeing young people get jobs? To me that is so important.

I will now briefly talk about Labor's environmental record in La Trobe. I mentioned wandering trad earlier. For those who do not know, it is a weed that grows in the creeks. In fact, it is in up to 50 kilometres of creeks in the Dandenong Ranges. It stops any wildlife from moving and it sucks up an amazing amount of water. Back in 2007, when Malcolm Turnbull was the environment minister, prior to the election being called we made an election commitment for $450,000 to find a biological control for wandering trad. The local environmentalists were exceptionally excited and really appreciated it.

During the same election campaign, Peter Garrett, I believe it was, bizarrely came down to La Trobe to make an announcement about the Great Barrier Reef. Unfortunately we do not have the Great Barrier Reef in La Trobe, but we would love to have it. Our big issues are fire management and weed control in the Dandenong Ranges. So what happened when the Rudd government was elected in 2007? One of the first things they did was to cut the wandering trad funding, and sadly this weed has caused a great deal of damage ever since. In 2010 I again committed to funding of $450,000, this time under Minister for the Environment Greg Hunt, who has been an absolute ambassador and supporter of the Dandenong Ranges. Again, Labor did not match this. They are all talk when it comes to the environment. The same was true of the Greens, who just kept their mouth shut during the election campaign.

In the 2013 election campaign what did we do? We announced further funding for wandering trad amounting to $450,000. The Minister for the Environment, Greg Hunt, knows how bad this problem is in the Dandenong Ranges. Remember that this is one of Victoria's top 10 tourist attractions. It is a disgrace that our creeks do not flow because of this weed. Greg Hunt, and I think Ian Macfarlane also, committed that the CSIRO will continue to look at finding a biological control. In New Zealand this weed is devastating their national forest and they have committed to a biological control.

The other announcement we made was $2.4 million dollars to be spent on bushfire and fuel reduction in the Dandenong Ranges. I made similar announcements back in 2010 and 2007. Again, the Labor Party talks about doing great work for the environment and how passionate they are, but would they match this commitment? No. The only true supporters of the environment in the Dandenong Ranges, in the electorate of La Trobe, have been the Liberal Party and the Nationals.

We see that Minister for the Environment Greg Hunt has been a great supporter of La Trobe, the Dandenong Ranges and of the environment. This program, put together with the Prime Minister Tony Abbott, is all good. It is all about the environment, it is all about finding jobs for young people. I do not understand why we have this criticism and lack of support from the Labor Party. They should bow their heads in shame, especially if they venture into La Trobe.

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