Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Shadow Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Environment and Water, who has federal responsibility for environment and water, just to be clear. I refer to the minister's question time statement last week, and I quote:

… we're not proposing any takeover of state laws any duplication of state laws. We're not proposing of duplication of state laws. Heritage protection will predominantly remain a matter for states and territories.

Given the Western Australian government is set to scrap its cultural heritage laws, will the federal minister rule out federal mandatory national standards that require cultural surveys for farmers on their private property?

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

I thank the shadow minister for the question. I don't know how often I can say to this place what I said every day last week in question time: we are not for one moment intending to take on the cultural heritage protection laws of any state or territory. That's true of WA. That's true of any other state that is doing cultural heritage protection reforms.

We have our own process in place. That is a process that was begun by the former Minister for the Environment; the consultation with the First Nations Heritage Protection Alliance was begun by the former Minister for the Environment. We're talking about updates to Commonwealth laws. We're not talking about duplicating, copying, adopting any WA laws.

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

What's amazing about this is that, until very, very recently, not only did the former Minister for the Environment support this process, because she began it, not only did the member for Leichhardt support this process, because he chaired the two Juukan Gorge inquiries, but the shadow minister for the environment supported this process.

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

Order. The Leader of the Nationals will not interject anymore.

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

He said, and I quote:

Those events—

he's talking about Juukan Gorge—

were so disastrous that they made it very clear that comprehensive work needed to begin, as a matter of urgency, on modernising Indigenous heritage protection laws in Australia.

The member for Cowper of course has also been a great supporter of this approach. The member for Cowper said, and I quote:

We are very pleased that the minister—

that's me, in this case—

has now made clear that she will be continuing the work that had already begun in this area during the years of the coalition government.

He said:

… we always considered that it was that this process be centred on the views and the experience of traditional owners.

And, of course, Senator Dean Smith also said, and I quote:

… the Juukan Gorge, which we know to be of such tremendous heritage value to Indigenous people in my home state of Western Australia, people should ask themselves, 'What has changed?'

Can I say, again, that we have no intention of adopting the WA laws—as they were and as they will change. We are the Commonwealth government; we are looking at the Commonwealth laws, and we'll update them according to the process put in place by the former Minister for the Environment.