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

I thank you for that clarification. I will ask just one more question on this area, then I promise I will move on. Under the current provisions of the act, if an incident were sufficiently significant—and I would maintain that Montara was—and if there were clear liability with a company or that company had clearly caused the accident, is there power for the minister to say, prior to a commission of inquiry, 'No, we will not grant that lease because of the seriousness and significance of the issues involved in this incident'? That power would not, of course, be as clear as we were trying to make it with this amendment, but is it there under the current act?