Dean Smith (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury) Share this | Hansard source

You would be wrong if you thought this was the only example of Labor imperilling the future of regional Western Australia. You would be very, very wrong if you thought this was the only example. We have examples of Labor cutting regional road funding from the Kimberley through to the Pilbara and down to the Great Southern area of Western Australia. We have the very live issue of Labor now embarking on delivering its election commitment to ban live sheep exports. And now we have an example where WA Labor, supported by the federal Labor government, would want to rob Western Australians—not just in regional Western Australia but throughout the state—of their future prosperity.

The prosperity of Western Australia is built on two things: our mining and our agriculture. This Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Act law and the poorly implemented regulations will go to the heart of destroying Western Australian wealth and future prosperity. Let me put that in context. I don't want to be unkind to the rest of the country, but the success of our country as a whole is largely built on the success of Western Australia and then, after that, Queensland.

You're quite right, Senator Scarr: watch out Queensland!

Let me put this in context for you. What we're talking about here are not little issues that may or may not cause someone harm. This has the potential to go to the core of Western Australian prosperity, undermining our mining industry and undermining our agriculture industry.

I'll take that interjection from Senator Cox. I would like to come back to the facts and figures about why Western Australia is so important for our national prosperity, but I think at this point, Senator Cox, it probably is timely to read into the Hansard what Senator Cox had to say and what the state Greens member of the upper house parliament had to say on 29 June about the WA Labor Party's Aboriginal cultural heritage laws. What did they say? Reported in the West Australia newspaper, they called them 'flawed'. They called them 'flawed'. The West Australian newspaper went on to say that Senator Cox, supported by the state upper house Greens member Mr Brad Pettitt, 'savaged the legislation for failing to do enough to protect Indigenous artefacts and sacred sites'.