A division of the Liberal Party of Australia
GREEN CORPS LAUNCH - PROTECTING BIG DUNE SURFING RESERVE
21 December, 2006
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GREEN CORPS LAUNCH – PROTECTING BIG DUNE SURFING RESERVE – YEPPOON
Thursday 21st December, 2006
Thanks very much Peter. Mayor of the Livingstone Shire, Bill Ludwig and other distinguished guests and ladies and gentlemen.
First of all; my sincere congratulations to the Green Corps guys. You guys are volunteers, you are getting involved in a project which will not only help yourselves both now and into the future but as well you are helping this community. It is great to see you becoming involved with the community through the Council and through the Surfriders Foundation. Ross has explained to me, and I am sure explained to you all, just how important this Big Dunes area is. It is a very fragile area. It’s been almost I think you would say ‘loved to death’ by locals and some not quite so local and it does need a bit of remedial work done, a bit of work done to protect it and preserve it for the future.
As Ross has said, we are living in very significant times. The economy is going very, very well, people do have a lot of money. They congregate in these sorts of areas. A lovely spot the Livingstone Shire and Yeppoon and all congratulations to the Mayor and his Council for the work they’ve done. But you guys are going to be part of all of that, working at the Big Dunes area and also, I understand, working at the Council Nursery propagating native trees and helping meet the demand that there is for native flora and fauna at the present time.
You guys are here for 26 weeks and during that time as well as doing work for the community you’ll be getting a lot of very good training. You’ll end up with a Certificate. You’re getting First Aid training, training in Occupational Health and Safety – all the sorts of skills that will fit you out well for your future in our society.
I know from long experience, and I have to say as an aside that I was the junior Minister in the Environment Portfolio when the Green Corps first started and in its early days I actually helped put the Green Corps Programme together so I have watched it over a long period of time, known how good it is and there are some 16,000 young Australians of your age, or they were when they did it, who have done Green Corps work and the majority of them have always left the course after 26 weeks and walked into a job straight away. A lot of employers when they are interviewing people actually look through the CV and when they see Green Corps they say well these kids are great. You are all volunteers, you are not ‘work for the dole’ people, and I always like to emphasise that, you have volunteered for this programme, you have volunteered for the environment. It is a great programme. As a Government I think it is one of the best programmes we have ever done and I, and I know the Minister Sharman Stone and the Prime Minister John Howard are all very, very keen on this programme and are very happy with what has been done.
Can I tell you that over the 10 or so years the Green Corps have been going, Green Corps participants like yourselves have planted some 14 million trees, done 8,000 kilometres of fencing, 50,000 hectares of weeds have been attacked, 9,500 kilograms of native seeds have been collected and disbursed around the country. There have been 5,000 animal and plant surveys done by Green Corps teams and Green Corps teams over that 10 years have had 1,000 Community Field Days where they have brought the whole community in to understand more about the environment.
So, you join a group that has done a great job for Australia. What you do cannot be dealt with in isolation. It does require partners and the Surfriders Foundation are your partners for this and well done to them. It is part of their land that they run. As well, the Livingstone Shire Council also joint trustees of this particular area and the Councils are always a very important part of your programme providing the little bits and pieces that the Federal Government doesn’t provide. Queensland National Parks and Wildlife Service are involved and as I have mentioned the Community Nursery.
I think this is something you are really going to enjoy. You have been doing it for about 6 weeks already and you are still here so that tells us something. It is, as Ross has mentioned, a very special part of this environment which does need some rejuvenation and protection so that it will be there for future generations as well as our generation.
Thanks to you all for volunteering. Thanks for what you have done. Thanks to Community Employment Options - they do a lot of these Green Corps things and a lot of other good work in conjunction with the Federal Government, funded by the Federal Government in some cases, and we very much appreciate their work. And Paul from the Green Corps team, I can tell by the spontaneous applause that you are already these guys’ favourite and can’t be too hard a task master I understand.
Good on you all. Jamie, well spoken. If you keep that up you will be a politician, you might be mayor of this place, or a senator in the future if you keep talking like that, but well done and well done to all of you. I know you’ll enjoy it. Have a great time. Thanks for what you do and to all of you Merry Christmas.