Mark Coulton (Parkes, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for the Environment and Water. I refer to the minister's answer yesterday, which failed to rule out the government requiring farmers to undertake mandatory cultural heritage surveys. Has the government undertaken modelling on the cost for farming businesses of mandatory obligations like cultural surveys?

Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Environment and Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to thank the member for his question. What his question today and the question yesterday referred to are some provisions in Western Australian law. Can I be very clear: we are the Commonwealth government and we're not proposing to adopt Western Australian law.

Hon. Members:

Honourable members interjecting—

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order. Twenty seconds in. I'm just going to ask the minister to pause, and I'll hear from the Leader of the Nationals.

David Littleproud (Maranoa, National Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On relevance, the question clearly went to the question that was asked yesterday that went to the federal proposed legislation, not Western Australia's. So the minister is not even close to being relevant to the question that was asked today or yesterday.

Government members interjecting—

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order. Members on my right, there's far too much noise for me to even hear the minister. I'll bring her back to the question, and she has the call.

Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Environment and Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In that case, it's difficult to understand what the member's referring to, because what he's referring to is in the Western Australian legislation. Let's take a step back here to look at why this heritage reform legislation is necessary. This is something that came out of the destruction of Juukan Gorge, a 46,000-year-old sacred site.

Oh, excuse me. The Leader of the Opposition has just said that this did come out of the Western Australian government, whereas the Leader of the National Party has said this has nothing to do with Western Australian legislation. I'm not clear.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Leader of the Nationals will cease interjecting, the Minister for Home Affairs will cease interjecting and the member for McEwen will cease interjecting. Everyone, I want to hear from the Minister for the Environment and Water to hear her answer to the question from the member of Parkes.

Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Environment and Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They sit next to each other, and they can't even get their question straight. It's bizarre. It's no wonder they're in such trouble. I don't often say this, but I do agree with the now Deputy Leader of the Opposition when she said, and I quote:

Indigenous Heritage Protection remains an all too complex interaction of state, territory and commonwealth law and it needs to be addressed through a national conversation.

She said:

This is about the Government working with Indigenous Australians and recognising their right to determine what is important to them.

I support the process she put in train. I support the fact she contracted the First Nations Heritage Protection Alliance to develop work in this area.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Leader of the Nationals will cease interjecting.

Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Environment and Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I support the fact that she put $11 million on the table in May, before the election, to do this work. Can I also say that the work that the member for Leichhardt did in chairing the two inquiries that came out of the Juukan Gorge tragedy was led so successfully by the member for Leichhardt when he described that there are 'serious deficiencies' in cultural heritage laws. He said:

It became apparent to the committee that the legislation designed to protect cultural heritage has in many, many cases directly contributed to the damage and destruction …

He also said:

It is time for the legislative frameworks in Australia, in all Australian jurisdictions, to be modernised to bring meaningful protection to Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander cultural heritage …

(Time expired)