By Rod Brown*
On 30 July, the Rudd Government announced 50,000 new green jobs and training opportunities to build a stronger and greener Australian economy.
It involves $94 million towards a ‘major reform of Australia’s training system to help support jobs and communities being hit by the local consequence of a severe global recession’.
Leaving aside the hyperbole, there is an opportunity for councils to access some of this funding, and to leverage Federal support for other submissions to the Feds.
The components are:
- 10,000 member National Green Jobs Corps – long term unemployed youth take part in
26 weeks of green job training and work experience - 30,000 apprentices trained with new Green
Skills – tradies complete their training with
practical job ready green skills - 4,000 training places for insulation installers
(shudder at this waste of public funds!)– to help longterm unemployed or disadvantaged
people into the workforce - 6,000 new local green jobs – focused on
environmental sustainability in priority local
economies.
The National Green Jobs Corps is most relevant to Local Government because it involves a
26 week environmental training program for 18 to 24 year olds in:
- bush regeneration and planting native trees
- wildlife and fish habitat protection
- walking and nature track construction
restoration.
National Green Jobs Corp is a program being developed by the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations.
*Rod Brown is a regular contributor to Local Government FOCUS. He is from the Cockatoo Network and can be contacted on apd@orac.net.au for more details.
