Julian Simmonds (Ryan, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to congratulate my community on a very successful Clean Up Australia Day on Sunday. This is a tremendous event that allows locals to get out there and, with the support of all levels of government, help keep their area clean and green. We know that Australians produce 540 kilograms of household rubbish per person every year. Each year Australia generates approximately 67 million tonnes of waste amongst us. So it is so important not only that we recycle and ensure the waste goes to the appropriate mechanisms but also that we are out there as a community keeping our local waterways and green spaces clean, and Clean Up Australia Day is a tremendous opportunity to do just that.

It started 30 years ago in 1990, and since then over 35 million hours of volunteer time have been donated to the cause across Australia and almost 18 million Australians have donated their time to help clean up their local area. Of course, we don't have this year's results just yet, but in 2019 there were over 7,700 sites registered across Australia with over 17,000 ute loads of rubbish cleaned up and taken out of our green spaces. I'm sure that we have done better than that this year; although I would hope that, even though we got more volunteers at more sites, the rubbish we collected is actually down as people are heeding the message to make sure that they recycle and send their waste to the appropriate mechanisms.

This year I participated in quite a number of Clean Up Australia Day events right across the electorate. Firstly, I volunteered with the Cubberla Witton Catchments Network, who do a tremendous job and who had a lot of volunteers turn out. I did that with the local state member, Christian Rowan; local candidate Greg Adermann; and local councillor James MacKay. Thank you for your support as part of that.

We were then in Kennewell Park at Chapel Hill with Lauren Day, the local candidate there, in attendance as well. She is committed to her local community. We went down to Brian Hallinan Bikeway at The Gap with Councillor Peter Matic and Councillor Steve Toomey in attendance, along with the kids from The Gap State School. Isn't it tremendous to see young kids getting involved in cleaning up their local environment?

I think that shows the particular focus that Brisbane City Council have on keeping our green spaces clean. The lord mayor there, Adrian Schrinner, is committed to reducing waste, and he's got a tremendous campaign going with the Love Food Hate Waste campaign, which is incredibly successful. I'm sure you'll see the Brisbane City Council rolling out more recycling initiatives going forward.

Then, of course, at the federal level we have our own plastic summit going on right now. I'd like to congratulate Trevor Evans, who is our very first Assistant Minister for Waste Reduction and Environmental Management. We know that there are jobs in this for the Australian community—nine jobs for every 10,000 tonnes of waste generated.

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