Page 336 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 7 March 2007
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
cleaned the reserve at the back of the Southlands shopping centre and managed to collect 12 bags of rubbish from the area, which was a great effort.
Mr Gentleman: Did you get any golf balls?
MS MacDONALD: No golf balls Mr Gentleman. My thanks go to the volunteers who gave their time on the Sunday morning. Altogether there were six of us working on this particular site.
I believe that nationally an estimated one million people took part in Clean Up Australia Day, cleaning more than 7,000 sites across the country. More than 800 Canberrans took part in the day, with preliminary results showing that more than 800 bags of rubbish were collected. Now in its 18th year, the Clean Up Australia Day initiative is an important one for the future sustainability of our local environment.
With the issue of climate change high on the agenda—and, of course, debated here today—Clean Up Australia Day’s chairman, Ian Kiernan, announced that this year’s Clean Up Australia Day would give volunteers the opportunity to make a Clean Up our Climate pledge. All volunteers involved with this year’s Clean Up Australia Day will be sent pledges calling on them to commit to reducing their household greenhouse gas emissions by at least 25 per cent each year for the next three years. This initiative will give individuals the opportunity to act year round to reduce emissions and assist in preserving our environment.
My congratulations go to all the local businesses who were involved with Business Clean Up Day on Tuesday, 27 February, and to the schools that took part in Schools Clean Up Day on Friday, 2 March. Melrose high school held its own schools clean-up event yesterday morning, and I believe that it was a great success. Many students took part and helped to clean up the school grounds and surrounding reserves and roadways. To recognise their efforts I will be holding a thankyou morning tea for the students on Friday. I look forward to learning how much rubbish they collected and what they found.
It is great to see students and schools taking responsibility for their local environments. I am sure I will be holding another Clean Up Australia Day event next year. I urge all members to get involved with a clean-up site in their electorate. I know it is a big commitment to organise your own site; I would like to take this opportunity to thank Lisa Brill in my office. For a number of years now she has organised the Clean Up Australia Day event for me. My name goes down on it but, as we all know, without the staff in our office to do the actual work it would never get done. I do—
Mrs Dunne: Was she picking up the papers too?
MS MacDONALD: Yes, she was picking up the papers, as was I, Mrs Dunne—quite a few, in fact. Lisa juggled it with her commitments as a parent. I do appreciate the fact that she gave up over an hour of her time on a Sunday morning to assist me with that, and it is not the first time she has done it.
A few hours can make a huge difference. It is a practical way to improve the environment for the constituents that we represent. It shows a bit of leadership on our
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .