ON A cold, blustery day Prime Minister Tony Abbott, Environment Minister Greg Hunt joined Member for Eden Monaro Peter Hendy for a spot of tree planting at Barrack Flats Park, Queanbeyan.
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The ministers were there to announce the fourth round of applications for the Green Army program which centres on local environment and heritage conservation projects. There will be a special focus on heritage, on rural, remote and Indigenous and on the reef and threatened species in this round.
"This is a very large-scale exercise in practical environmental restoration; it's tree-planting, it's track creation, it's weed eradication, it's feral animal eradication," Mr Abbott said on Wednesday, August 12.
"These are all things which the Green Army is doing and it's a $700 million project over the forward estimates and it will build up to 1500 projects every year -1500 projects and 15,000 participants every year."
While the ministers were there to spruik the government's commitment to the environmental talk quickly turned to plebiscite on same-sex marriage.
Mr Abbott said it was an issue that should be decided by the people rather than Parliament.
"I don't think the public mind having a say on these things and while obviously this is a Government which wants to minimise expense, by the same token we do want the public to have a say on this," he said.
The Prime Minister's visit was an unexpected but welcome one for local Green Army team leader Maree Dibella.
The team has been completing projects along the Queanbeyan River, Barracks Flat Drive Park, Peace Park, Blundell Park, Glebe Park and will start on erecting a fence near Mount Jerrabomberra.
"It was a good experience to have the Prime Minister come out and have a look at what we've done," she said.
"I think the Green Army program is great and I would like to see the continued support of that.
"It's nice to be able to look at the riverside areas and parks and know you have natives there and providing good habitat to birds. We're seeing lots of birdlife which is a really good perk of the job.
"We had some people complain about the kind of trees we've planted that were going to obstruct their views but you can't please everybody."
This week's launch of the fourth round of Green Army projects followed the Government's announcement of a 26 to 28 per cent emissions reductions targets for 2030.
For more information on the Green Army program visit www.environment.gov.au.
