Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator McAllister for that question. In relation to that latter assertion, I never became aware of that, because never was such an arrangement entered into it. I think Senator Brandis has made very clear that there is no arrangement. There is a notification in the letter of 13 April 2015, which has been well publicised, by WA Treasurer Nahan, of the intention of introducing certain legislation and notifying the then Treasurer, Joe Hockey, that the Western Australian government would 'rely on the power of the state to displace certain provisions of the Corporations Act, which, as you will recall from when you negotiated referral of corporations law powers from the states, was explicitly preserved in the Corporations Act'. And then the Treasurer responded on 29 April thanking him for that notification and also acknowledging that this was what they were proposing to do and making this important point: 'It is important that the ensuing process result to as great an extent as possible in fair outcomes for creditors, consistent with their legal positions before the legislation takes effect' et cetera.

It is interesting: I am not surprised that no WA Labor senator asked me that question, because of course the WA Labor Party is at the heart of this most shameful episode in Western Australian political history, because the taxpayers of Western Australia and the taxpayers of Australia are still paying the price for the deep-seated corruption in Labor's WA Inc. period. Most of the business partners of the Burke Labor government, the Peter Dowding Labor government, are no longer with us, but this was a period of deep-seated corruption between the WA Labor state government at the time and sections of the business community in Western Australia at the time. Taxpayers in Western Australian and taxpayers in Australia are still paying the price for it.