Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

All the areas in the act are complicated. I acknowledge that we did have a briefing and I appreciate that, but these provisions continually reference back to each other and they are even more complicated than a lot of the other ones. The specific concern we have with this is around this issue of the Commonwealth, as the funding body and the holder of the statutory rights, then being able to hand over the rights to another person and it is not specified who that person could be. My understanding from these provisions is that it is completely left open. I understand that the Commonwealth retains ownership of the infrastructure but it can hand it over for use under this provision and that does not have to be with the agreement of the land council. That is of concern.

I have another question, which may be technical. If it is going to be too technical, I would appreciate the briefing. In subdivision D, on page 30, it says:

(1) If a person has the statutory rights under 20W and 20X—

which are the two sections we were just talking about—

the person may, by writing, determine that the buildings or infrastructure is no longer required by the person.

Is that the person deciding they do not want it anymore and just saying, ‘We don’t want it anymore?’ or is this another person determining that you cannot use it anymore?