Don Randall (Canning, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to speak on the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Green Army Programme) bill 2014. I would dearly love to speak on this for an hour because one of my passions is the success of the Green Corps, a previous program implemented by the Howard government. I know the member for Bendigo has not been in the parliament very long, but if she were here long enough I would be able to tell her about some of the huge successes that were seen throughout Australia as a result of that program.

Just a couple need to be put on the record. Green Corps was able to produce something like 5,000 kilometres of walking tracks and boardwalks; it cleared 5,000 tonnes of weeds; it constructed more than 8,000 kilometres of fencing to protect sand dunes and wetlands; and it propagated more than 14 million trees. That is not a bad success, dare I say to the previous member, who wanted to say that the Green Corps program did not achieve anything. I will also address some of the other things she alluded to. I have had three projects committed in my electorate, which I will outline in a moment. It is fantastic that this will engage local community groups, local governments, local environment groups and young people in particular between the ages of 17 and 24, all of which are important to the vital growth of Australia.

In Western Australia we have an unemployment rate of something like 4.9 per cent, but, sadly, in the Peel region—the area that I represent around Mandurah—youth unemployment is heading towards 20 per cent. One in five young people is still struggling to get a job in a resource-rich state like Western Australia. This program will definitely help young people like that. This is evidence of our commitment to the environment, young people working in the environment and the career prospects of those young people. Contrary to what was said by the member for Bendigo, under this program there are training certifications and there are outcomes that young people involved in these programs can transfer to other jobs. The success of this program saw a lot of people that I was engaged with in the electorate go on and get substantial jobs. Unbelievably, this 26-week program started off with 10 young people and sometimes before the program had finished they had been poached or headhunted by the local council, a nursery or an environmental repair agency to go and work for them because they saw how talented and dedicated they were in doing their jobs.

May I also say that all my local governments involved themselves in the previous Green Corps programs: the City of Armadale, the Shire of Serpentine-Jarrahdale, the Shire of Murray, the Shire of Waroona and the City of Mandurah. The City of Mandurah was a standout star. It had 22 Green Corps programs and the legacy of those 22 programs is now that many wetlands in the Peel region are protected and enhanced. For example, along the Murray River in North and South Yunderup, the wash from the boats had started to see the erosion of the river banks and the degradation of that whole environment, where the reeds and sedges are basically the lungs of the river—they clean and cleanse and enhance the water quality. The young people were involved in the replanting programs in those wetlands and that river was restored. Man does have an influence and a footprint on our environment and quite often we are obliged to repair it, and that is what these young people did in these programs.

There were so many programs. We were involved with Alcoa, who is the largest employer in the Peel region. They have a large refinery and mining operation in Pinjarra. Alcoa engaged with the local people at Fairbridge to repair a number of rivers and wetlands in that area. I can go on. Coastal dunes were protected from blowouts by putting boardwalks in so that people would not traipse through and further erode them.

The program was an outstanding success. Why did that program fall in a hole? Because the Labor Party took over in 2007. Philosophically they did not agree with this program. They did not agree with Work for the Dole. I will give you examples of the tragedies that stand as a legacy of failure from the Labor Party cancelling this program in 2012. The brook that runs through Jarrahdale—an area famous obviously for its jarrah trees—had been overrun by weeds and needed rock walling, and the Green Army was doing that. The Work for the Dole program was involved in repairing the former mill manager's residence, a cottage with heritage values. The Labor Party cancelled that program because they do not like mutual obligation—we know how they railed against it when it was introduced—and that cottage stands half finished. The legacy is a crumbling cottage that is half repaired.

The Labor Party decided to fold Work for the Dole into the Green Corps program and those proud young people aged 18 to 25 years old in their new uniforms, including boots and protective gear, were joined by long-term, recidivous unemployed who said: 'You don't have to turn up for work. Truancy is just a part of our way of life.' They would turn up drug affected or alcohol affected. Some of them had mental illness issues and should have been in professional care instead of being put on a Work for the Dole program. But Labor rolled all these older people into the Green Corps program and destroyed it. Then they said, 'It doesn't work,' and cancelled the whole thing. That was one of the tragedies that happened previously.

This program is now going to reinstate and reengage young people into community programs that are going to help the whole electorate. The member for Bendigo said that these people are not going to get paid properly, be looked after properly or be able to sustain themselves. They will. They actually will get paid more than the job search allowance. As the previous speaker from Lyne said, they can maintain their part-time work. If they are working after hours or on weekends they can maintain two jobs. At the end of it they will get a certificate that is transportable into a new job.

None of these programs would have existed without the necessary workplace and duty of care obligations in terms of occupational health and safety. They are insured. The member for Bendigo said she was the last speaker on their side, although I see another speaker. The answer to her question is: yes, they have all the insurances that anyone in a workplace should have. We would be irresponsible as a government to set up a program where they were not insured. They get more money and they are looked after and insured. If they get ill or hurt on the job they will receive those entitlements through the set-up of this program.

I want to talk about the programs that are going to be rolled out in the electorate of Canning. As an aside, the age has increased from 17 to 24 and that will include in this program a lot of young people who are volunteers. They are not dragooned or press-ganged; they are volunteers and they proudly involve themselves and engage themselves in the program. Many of them from the previous programs come back to see the results of their handiwork and the work they have done to repair the environment.

Three priority Green Army projects are in the electorate of Canning: the Peel-Harvey Catchment project, the Len Howard Conservation Park project and the Birriga Brook project. The Peel-Harvey Catchment is one of the largest wetlands in Western Australia. It is under stress from nutrients coming down through three rivers: the Harvey River, the Serpentine River and the Murray River. They carry a huge nutrient load from the farming areas and the tributaries go right back into the wheat belt. People put superphosphate on their paddocks and that comes down with the water and you get massive algal blooms and degradation of the waterways in the Peel-Harvey Catchment. As a result, it needs special management.

I digress slightly to say that one of the achievements that we committed to and has been confirmed in the budget is to now have the Peel-Harvey as a stand alone NRM. It is being hived off from the South West Catchments Council, the SWCC. The South West Catchments Council went from Albany right through to Perth. The Peel-Harvey Catchment area obviously starts largely in Harvey and goes north. It is a smaller area but it is a very large, sensitive wetland area and it needs specific management. Minister Hunt should be congratulated on seeing the merits of creating a stand-alone NRM to look after this very sensitive and highly valued wetland and environmental region. It is part of the Ramsar wetlands. The thrombolites, an ancient life form, are in some of those areas there. That shows how valued, how old and how pristine this region is that needs to be looked after. There we have the Green Army program looking at environmental repair projects around Peel-Harvey Estuary.

Also, the Len Howard reserve around Mandurah is an area that needs specific looking after. This wetlands area is in the north-west corner of the Peel Inlet in an area called East Erskine. The park is named after Len Howard, a true champion of environmental causes in the Mandurah and Peel region. The majority of the park is a wetland area which includes walking trails and a number of birdwatching areas, or hides—both of which are popular amongst locals and visitors throughout the region.

Over the past few years, however, these areas have become inundated with fallen trees, debris, rubbish and invasive weeds. The build-up of debris poses a serious fire hazard, especially considering the park's borders are near residential areas around Willoughbridge Crescent et cetera. In addition to this fire risk, residents on these streets have also had to deal with trespassing trail bikes . I am sure that anyone in an outer metropolitan electorate has the scourge of trail bikes chopping through everyone's backyards and nature reserves. They have begun to utilise parts of this reserve and are not only disturbing its sanctity and ambience but also further damaging this valuable wetland area.

The Department of Environment and Conservation manages this park, and the area is located within the city of Mandurah. This is potentially a great tourist attraction, but it is a problem for the region because of its degradation. We are going to fix this up under the Green Army project. We are going to repair the trails; we are going to put bollards in to stop those motorbikes coming through and terrorising not only the residents but also, more importantly, the animal and bird life. We are going to make sure that the area is less invaded for people observing many of the migratory birds in that area by repairing the hides and general access to the area to enhance the area's integrity.

Another project in my electorate is the Birriga Brook project. All of the paperwork has been done for that one. It is ready to go—as they say, it is 'shovel ready'. I congratulate Keith Ellis, the new President of the Shire of Serpentine-Jarrahdale. They have all their formal agreements in place, and I will be meeting with Keith Ellis and his shire people shortly to get on with this area in Darling Downs. Darling Downs is an area with large blocks where people keep horses, generally. Also, there are bridle trails, walk trails and a fair wetland. The problem with Birriga Brook is that some of the people further up the stream decided that they did not like it going through their properties or wanted to keep the water, so it has been blocked and chopped all the way through. We are going to restore the environmental flows to this brook. We are going to clean out all the weeds and all the rubbish that has been coming down there for ages. At the moment, the stream does not run. It is dead. We want to get it back flowing so that it adds to the environment in the Darling Downs area.

This is a great story. This is a story that should continue so that the young people can repair and enhance the environment. I commend the bill to this House.

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