Abbott reduces offer for his 'green army'
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by: DAVID CROWE
From: The Australian
July 06, 2013
TONY Abbott has scaled down one of his flagship policies to cut $100 million from the cost of hiring a "green army" to work on hundreds of conservation projects if he wins power at the coming election.
The cut means a Coalition government would pay school leavers and students only about $14.50 an hour to do the work -- far less than the $50,000 annual pay the Opposition Leader envisioned when he raised the idea three years ago.
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Mr Abbott pledged yesterday to set up a force of 15,000 young workers funded by Canberra to fix local environmental problems by working on projects such as revegetating sand dunes and river-bed remediation.
The plan cements an idea Mr Abbott put forward in 2010 to highlight his environmental credentials as he attacked Labor's carbon pricing scheme, but yesterday's policy details mark a significant adjustment to the original vision.
The new policy is based on an hourly rate of $14.50 for young people working only part of the year, enough to earn about $11,000.
The adjustment ensures the scheme can mobilise as many as 2500 people at 250 projects in the first year while meeting a strict limit on how much can be spent.
"The green army will march to the rescue of our degraded land and polluted waterways," the Opposition Leader said as he announced the new policy in Sydney yesterday.
Mr Abbott went to the 2010 election promising to spend $400m on the scheme in its first four years but adjusted that to $300m.
The scheme is an "opt-in" program for those aged from 17 to 24 and intended mainly for school leavers and students who could use the work to gain credits toward technical courses.