Tim Wilson (Goldstein, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Environmental stewardship is an unending commitment to preserve the earth and our beautiful conservation environment for future generations. The idea of stewardship is a foundation of liberalism itself, that we hand to future generations what we have inherited in a better state, whether it be a united society, a prosperous economy or a healthy environment. And, of course, we pride ourselves on our environment in this wonderful country. Australia has some of the most unique biodiversities and environments of all the countries across the planet. And, of course, we take pride every day in how we treat it responsibly. Everybody is encouraged to use land sustainably, and communities are encouraged to steward the environment at a grassroots level.

In the wonderful electorate of Goldstein, we have wonderful parks, golf courses and the most incredible nature reserves, which are the beaches along Port Phillip, including marine parks. So that's why Clean Up Australia Day—I know it was a while ago, but because of COVID-19 we haven't been able to talk about it—inspires so many local residents to do the right thing by our local environment. We take pride in our beaches. We take pride in our parks. We take pride in our community, because we care for it. That's why, on 1 March, in Beaumaris, I joined with many others across Australia to care for our local communities and our local environments, and 17.7 million people have done it over last 30 years. That's 35 million hours of volunteer work. That's over 365,000 ute loads of rubbish that have been scooped up. What began as a backyard project has now become the nation's largest community based environment event, and it's an opportunity for everybody to participate.

Clean Up Australia Day was founded by Ian Kiernan, who took the initiative to tackle pollution at the local level with the support of his mates, including co-founder Kim McKay AO. When Ian passed away in 2018, his vision for environmental localism got stronger and continues to be so. That's why I'm proud to be part of this important community event.

In Beaumaris, we went down to the beach around wreckage point to make sure that it was clean from plastics, particularly a lot of microplastics, which were in the surrounding areas and shrubbery, and making sure the sand was clean as well. Last year, we did the same thing down at Hampton Beach, and it was slightly disturbing, frankly, to find the amount of pollution and plastics that were found between the rocks on the beach which obviously were slowly breaking down. It took local initiative and local effort to fix it up. Every day and every week, beach patrols across our community live out those values by taking care of our local environment, but we all share that responsibility on Clean Up Australia Day.