E&OE….
Topics: Green Army, Iraq, Budget
TOM ELLIOTT:
The Federal Environment Minister Greg Hunt joins us now.
Mr Hunt, good afternoon.
GREG HUNT:
And good afternoon Tom.
TOM ELLIOTT:
Okay. Now, the Green Army, it was promised before the last election. Does it exist?
GREG HUNT:
Yes. As of today there are teams in the field around the country. We’ve rolled out the first 30 teams and we’ll add about 30 teams a month.
And these are groups of ten young people who are working in the environment and what they were saying to me today, we’ll get skills, we’ll get work experience and we’ll also get contacts because they’re working with landcare groups, council, Parks Victoria, they’re working with catchment management groups, friends groups, friends of the environment groups.
And so they’re doing good local projects, such as in the Dandenong Ranges where they were cleaning out the problems with wandering trad, which is a really vicious, destructive weed, replanting native vegetation, helping with habitat for native birds and native animals.
TOM ELLIOTT:
Okay. So but who – I mean do they get paid?
GREG HUNT:
Yes they do, they get paid. They’re young people 17 to 24. They get a supervisor, they have groups such as Conservation Volunteers Australia or Landcare Australia leading them and they have a wage of between $600 to almost $1000 a fortnight, depending on their age and they get lots of really good training and they do really positive things for the environment.
TOM ELLIOTT:
And who decides what projects? I mean there’s a million things you could do. Who makes the decision about what resources to devote to what project?
GREG HUNT:
So they’re proposals put forward by local communities. So for example the Community Weeds Alliance in the Dandenongs proposed today’s project.
In the – along the Great Ocean Road the Great Ocean Road Coast Committee has put forward a foreshore conservation plan and that includes removing a lot of invasive species, stabilising dunes in places you’ll be putting in boardwalks so people aren’t tramping over sensitive areas, wetland recovery.
Right around the country there are different groups leading different projects.
TOM ELLIOTT:
This all sounds very worthwhile and I’ve got an idea for you. I mean at the moment one of the Government’s other projects or missions is to try and reduce the incentive for people to go on the dole.
What about people who haven’t find a – or haven’t had a job for a while being stuck into the Green Army?
GREG HUNT:
Well, we are encouraging people who have been unemployed and I met a number of young people this morning, both on the Mornington Peninsula and in the Dandenongs, who had been unemployed who were really excited about doing this, because they said well look, frankly, I wasn’t doing anything.
I was on the dole, now I’m doing this and I feel good about it. I’m getting up, I’m getting training. They’ve already had training in workplace health and safety, the ones who are working on the weed reductions and the habitat recovery are being trained in chemicals.
TOM ELLIOTT:
Could you make it compulsory? I mean let’s say someone’s been unemployed for, I don’t know, six months and just isn’t getting anywhere with the job interviews.
I mean to me it sounds like the Green Army thing, if you’re making $1000 a fortnight that’s a fair bit better than the dole anyway. So why not make it compulsory?
GREG HUNT:
Well, this is the first stage. Within the next year we’re bringing in – or bringing back Work for the Dole and people will have a choice of Work for the Dole or they may choose Green Army if they’re in that 17 to 24 age group. Already though, you know, the numbers are building up.
And it may be somebody who’s finished Year 11 and they weren’t sure what to do, it might be somebody who was unemployed, they may have finished in a retail job where the job’s gone or they just didn’t want to do it and they’re thinking look, do I want to go into landscaping or farming or work as an environmental officer or ranger for a council and these young guys are out there, they’re in their sort of work uniforms and we equip them and we give them all the safety instructions and have a first class team leader and they come out of it with a Certificate I or a Certificate II or modules in either of those and they’re getting good training.
And at the end of the day within the next year we’ll have a full national Work for the Dole scheme…
TOM ELLIOTT:
And is it possible…
GREG HUNT:
…growing to 15,000 young Australians a year.
TOM ELLIOTT:
But is it possible the Work for the Dole scheme might – or be linked to the Green Army scheme? Just yes or no.
GREG HUNT:
So the answer is they’re alternative.
TOM ELLIOTT:
Okay.
GREG HUNT:
So you could either do Work for the Dole or you could do Green Army. And because of the scope and scale of Work for the Dole and making sure that everything is safe, we’re taking proper steps to – before we roll that out. Green Army we were a little bit ahead of the game and able to bring it in almost a year earlier.
And look, the projects I saw today, young people out on foreshores, in the Dandenong Ranges and the same thing’s happening in the Mallee, the Friends of Westgate Park, Wimmera Catchment Management Authority. All around Victoria and all around the country you’ll have people who are starting to do this and the numbers will grow from 2,500 to 15,000…
TOM ELLIOTT:
I’ve got to say I think it’s a good programme. I mean there’s that many things to be done and if people are unemployed and they’re looking for something to do this might be the ticket.
Just on a separate issue Mr Hunt; we were told that Australian forces, particularly the RAAF Super hornets, have started operations today in Iraq. A) is that true and B) is it also true, as Mathias Cormann indicated, that a tax increase might in the offing to pay for this commitment?
GREG HUNT:
Look, the first thing is that if operations have started, obviously the Defence Minister and the chief of the Defence Force are the right people to give any details, although it’s widely reported that there’s been operations over Iraq.
The second thing is we want to do everything we can to close this $50 billion deficit. We’ve got a series of measures before the Parliament at the moment and they’re the – they’re our first priorities. Our goal is to deal with them and we would hope that whether it’s the Opposition, the Greens or the crossbenchers, any one of those three groups could help us close that deficit and to do that in a way which doesn’t have any impact on Australians.
We’re really trying to do this in the way which is most reasonable and most sensible, and which is about reducing future expenditure height rather than adding taxes or other burdens on the Australian population. That’s our overwhelming preference and priority.
TOM ELLIOTT:
Greg Hunt thank you for your time.
GREG HUNT:
Thanks Tom, cheers.
TOM ELLIOTT:
Greg Hunt there, Federal Environment Minister.
(ENDS)