Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Vice-President of the Executive Council) Share this | Hansard source

I completely reject the premise of that question. What I would say is what I have said often in this chamber over my 13½ years here, and that is that on our side of the chamber we support environmental protection in a way that is economically responsible. We do want to see Australia continue to go from strength to strength, creating opportunities for Australians today and into the future to get ahead. We want to have projects get up across Australia, and we want those projects to be rigorously assessed to ensure

they comply with all of the relevant environmental laws at a state and federal level, but we want those processes to be conducted in a way that is efficient. That is why we are prepared to entrust these sorts of arrangements to state governments. In Western Australia, that is a state Labor government. Unless you are saying that the state Labor government in Western Australia are a bunch of environmental vandals, I don't know what it is that you're accusing us of. I'm not accusing them of that; I think that the state government in WA has the same objective as us.