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

When Senator Colbeck and Senator Cadell first moved this motion I voted in favour of it, but I must admit that I don't think I looked at it. The second time it came up, I had a bit of a read. I thought: 'Oh, they mustn't have talked to the Greens about it. It'll go through this time.' No. The third time it came up I thought: 'What's going on? Do they just not like you guys?' The fourth time it came up, I looked at the motion in detail and I thought: 'Well, I've got to speak on this. This is a serious issue for regional Australia.' And here we are for the fifth time—the fifth time!

For those listening along at home, what are we debating for the fifth time? Are we debating a fundamental change to government legislation? Are we debating a new impost on the renewable energy industry that's going to stop them in their tracks? Are we debating a fundamental change to our legal system? No. We're debating a Senate inquiry. That's what we're debating: a Senate references committee inquiry.

I'm a great believer in the Senate system, the committee system and what we do through those inquiries. They're valuable, and they inform policymaking in this place. The idea that this very straightforward reference to an inquiry would be blocked in this place for the fifth time beggars belief. And it demonstrates an arrogant government that is approaching these issues in a way that brooks no dissent, that doesn't want to hear from impacted communities.

And we've seen this in other places. In fact, we talked about it in this place today: arrogant Labor governments that want to impose their will on regional communities without listening to those communities, without talking to those communities and without hearing their quite legitimate perspectives on issues that, in the main, are delivering resources to the cities. These powerlines are not going to be of great use to the regional communities themselves. The gas transmission lines don't necessarily get tapped off to industrial development in the regions; occasionally they do, but not always. Mostly, they're taking a commodity, be it electricity or gas, to the cities, to keep them powered and to keep them operating in the levels of comfort that Australians have come to expect.

But the imposition is on our farming communities in particular. It's on our regions. It's they who face the taking of their land.

As I've said in this place before, under the federal Constitution, if the federal government compulsorily acquires land, at least it needs to be done on just terms. At least that protection is in our federal Constitution. But that protection is not in our state constitutions. We are therefore reliant on a variety of state regimes to operate in this space to ensure that landholders, in particular, are properly compensated for these takings. On the Western Australian government's page about compulsorily acquisitions it says that, as decided in the engineers case in, I think, 1912—don't quote me on that, Senator Colbeck; it might have been 1914—the High Court found that, because state constitutions are silent on the issue, there is no requirement for just terms under the state constitutions. This is made very explicit on the Western Australian compulsorily acquisition website. I'm a Western Australian senator, so I only looked at WA. If I went around and looked at the other states, I suspect they'd say exactly the same thing—that land can be compulsorily acquired and impositions such as those talked about by Senator Cadell and Senator Colbeck can be placed upon private land without compensation.

That is not always the case; I understand that. Some state governments do pay compensation. It varies. Some private companies involved in these projects pay landholders and others who are impacted, but it varies. There is no consistency of regime. But we have a unique circumstance, and that's why this inquiry is justified now. We have a government in power that is planning the rollout of up to 22,000 kilometres of new electricity grid. That's a staggering amount. And, as I've said before, that's not 22,000 kilometres that's going to go through the inner cities. Think about it: it can't. Yes, some of it might go through outer metro areas, but the vast majority of it is going through our regions. It's going through communities in the bush.

We have to stand up for regional Australia. Regional Australia feels under extraordinary pressure at the moment, and it's only those of us on this side who are standing up for regional Australia. We need to defend the rights of property owners to continue to be able to do with their property what's in their economic best interests. We need to be able to see regional communities consulted when these massive projects are going to be imposed upon them not for their own benefit but for the benefit of the big cities. We need to consider these impacts on regional Australia.

We will keep putting this motion up and, Senator Colbeck and Senator Cadell, I will keep coming along and speaking on this motion, because it is important that we allow these voices to be heard in this place through a Senate committee inquiry. I was sitting here listening to Senator Colbeck, Senator Cadell and others and I thought: 'Maybe I'm actually wasting my time today. Maybe the Labor government is actually just going to say: "Yes. Have your inquiry."' I really thought they might do that. But, no, they're not; they're going to keep opposing it.