Slade Brockman (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise on this matter of public importance reflecting on my journey around the state of Western Australia over the last week. On Monday of last week I was in the central south-west town of Katanning, part of the Great Southern region. It is an inland town, in an area of wheat and sheep farming, a regional community relatively small in size—around 3½ thousand people. In that community of around 3½ thousand people, some 650 of them came to a community hall to look at a couple of issues, one of which was the ban on live sheep exports. But the other issue—and undoubtedly it was the issue that drew the vast majority of the crowd—was the state Labor Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Act.

I know most Western Australians are very well aware of this, and I note my two good colleagues Senator O'Sullivan and Senator Smith will speak on this MPI today. Most Western Australians have gained an understanding of this issue over the last month or two. They probably hadn't heard about it before that. The state Labor legislation actually went through parliament a while back. It didn't cause much of a ruffle then. It was rammed through parliament. It was guillotined through parliament with no debate, no upper house inquiry. But the devil was very much in the detail of the regulations that came out earlier this year. As soon as, particularly, farmers but all property owners—miners, other land users—saw those regulations, it immediately, almost overnight, became apparent how poorly drafted, how poorly thought through and how poorly implemented this legislation was.

How does this reflect on this place and the federal Labor government? It reflects quite directly, because, as my friend and colleague Senator Smith pointed out earlier today, the origin of this was the Juukan Gorge inquiry that took place, looking at that incident and how it should be responded to. The state Labor government responded in a particular way, with disastrous results. But we also know that the federal Labor government has committed to put in place its own Aboriginal cultural heritage laws. We are deeply fearful, because there has been no consultation with the agricultural community. As far as I'm aware, as far as I can find out, there has been no consultation with other land users such as the mining industry and other affected landholders. There has been no consultation with our shadow minister, even though Labor claims it wants to be bipartisan in this area.

As Senator Smith stated, we fully support the protection of Aboriginal heritage. What we will fight against every day is poorly drafted, poorly implemented, poorly thought through legislation which directly impacts on landholders right across, in my case, Western Australia and which has the impact to affect landholders right across this wonderful country of ours. We will fight against that every day. I've spoken about the Katanning meeting. At a Dawesville meeting, there were another 250 people. At a meeting just yesterday in Waroona, I believe, again there were hundreds of people coming out, concerned about the impacts of this cultural heritage legislation. Farmers have talked about whether this will send them bankrupt or to jail.

We've been asking some pretty simple questions. The Labor government here tells us that they want to be bipartisan about this, but they haven't even talked to the agricultural community about it and they haven't even talked to the shadow minister about it. So we have to ask the question, reflecting on what we now know about the state Labor government: What has this Labor government got to hide?