Canberra's kindergarten students would be entrusted with helping the Liberals deliver on their pledge to green the nation's capital with one million trees in the next decade.
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Opposition Leader Alistair Coe has promised that every child would be given a voucher to purchase a new tree or pot plant on their first day of kindergarten - if the Liberals win October's territory election.
Mr Coe said the program, which he estimated would cost about $120,000 a year, would help to educate young children about nature while supporting the growth of the city's tree canopy.
Labor has rubbished the policy as "gesture politics", as it accused the Liberals of desperately trying to improve their "green credentials" to voters ahead of the October 17 election.
The Liberals last week unveiled the first set of environmental policies they will take to the election, promising one million trees in the next 10 years and guaranteeing a park or oval within a 10-minute walk of every Canberra home.
Mr Coe initially provided scant detail on the delivery of the tree-planting program, prompting Labor to label it another "half-baked announcement". The government also leapt on Mr Coe's claims that each plant would cost $10 to $20, saying the actual cost was closer to $400.
The Liberals leader provided more detail on the policy on Monday morning, revealing the Liberals would lean on families and private nurseries to help achieve the target.
He said vouchers worth about $20 would be handed to each of the 6000-odd children who started kindergarten in Canberra in each year.
Families could choose to purchase a tree or pot plant to be planted at their home. Pot plants would not be counted towards the overall tree target.
"This will add to the number of trees in the ACT, but also bring real education benefits for a child ... [including] learning about the planting process, learning about the benefits of planting trees, as well as the joy of watching it grow up," he said.
City Services Minister Chris Steel said the Liberals' focus on the planting of small "tube stock" plants would results in "mass failures of trees around Canberra". He said the ACT government was committed to planting and properly maintaining more than 20,000 new trees in Canberra.
He claimed the Liberals were pushing the environmentally-friendly policy because they knew the public was sceptical about the party's record on issues such as climate change.
"This is the environmental policy that you have when you don't really have an environmental policy ... and you're not interested in tackling climate change," he said.
"This is not a policy that is going to make a big difference ... it is tokenism."
Dan Jervis-Bardy
Dan covers federal politics from Parliament House, with a special focus on climate policy and the NDIS. He has previously reported on ACT politics and urban affairs since joining the Canberra Times in 2018.
Dan covers federal politics from Parliament House, with a special focus on climate policy and the NDIS. He has previously reported on ACT politics and urban affairs since joining the Canberra Times in 2018.
