Grievance Debate

World Environment Day

Mr BATTY (Bragg) (15:08): I rise to acknowledge World Environment Day, which was on 5 June and has been celebrated right across South Australia with a range of events across the state. It has been a privilege to attend some of these events over the past couple of weeks, both in my own local community, but also beyond. One such event was only a couple of weeks ago, which was the night of nights for environmentalists in South Australia: the SA Environment Awards, which I had the privilege of attending along with the Deputy Premier.

This is an award that has been running since 1998, and it is an opportunity to acknowledge and celebrate South Australians who have given their time, their expertise and their passion to protecting what I see as one of South Australia's greatest assets, our natural environment. It is presented in partnership with the Conservation Council, as well as Green Adelaide, the Department for Environment and Water, and the University of Adelaide's Environment Institute. I thank them for their work in putting the awards together.

I also congratulate the award winners across all six categories of the awards, including the winner of the Jill Hudson Award for Environmental Protection, Yuri Poetzl; the Conservation Science Prize Award, Dr Dominic McAfee; the Working Together Award winner, which went to Aussie Bread Tags for Wheelchairs; the Innovation Award, which went to SA Grassroots Ecosystem; the Leif Justham Young Achiever Award this year to Gemma Dawe; and also particularly congratulations to the Green Adelaide's Pelzer Prize winner, Dr Mark Ellis.

I particularly acknowledge Dr Mark Ellis because he is Burnside council's own. He is the coordinator for Conservation and Land Management at the City of Burnside. In that role he leads conservation work and management for over 130 hectares of reserves and manages the council's urban biodiversity sites. I am told he is also responsible for a very popular program at council, which is their native plant giveaway, and also the restoration of the Michael Perry Botanic Reserve. I particularly congratulate Dr Mark Ellis of Burnside council for taking out that award this year.

Speaking of local award winners in the environmental space, I also had the opportunity to attend Burnside council's Environment and Sustainability EXPO on the weekend, which was also attended by the Deputy Premier. It was an enormously successful event, featuring a sustainable fashion market, food trucks, information stalls, the launch of a new sustainable waste management system at the council chambers and also an opportunity to present a whole range of awards to local award winners.

I want to congratulate those winners, including the runners up, the Australian War Widows, who were doing a lot of work around preventing the blight of fast fashion and also about sustainable floral tributes and wreaths, which is a good reminder for many of us in this place who often have to lay wreaths that we should do so in a way that does not use microplastics, and perhaps rely more on native plants.

We heard all about the Rose Park childcare centre's sustainability practices. I am going to visit their worm farm soon. They were a runner up in these awards as well for all their sustainable practices. There is the Botanica Enviros Club, which is a club operating at the new Glenside development, led by David Everett. They commenced developing a substantial understorey project beneath trees in Banksia Park in the new Glenside development. I helped them with some of their tree planting about a year ago and it has really come a long way since. I congratulate David Everett and the whole club as very worthy award winners.

The overall winner was the Rose Park Primary School, which won it for a range of reasons, including their Green Thumbs Garden, and also their major project at Gurney Reserve planting a lot of trees. I have helped them out with a bit of it as well. It is a genuine community atmosphere and a community exercise. They are a very deserved award winner.