Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I assume the 'you' in that is the minister I'm representing or the government. Obviously, no, I don't have responsibility for the cultural heritage reforms, but I think your question is clear. The information I have—and I might have given you this answer previously—is that we committed to reforming national heritage protection laws. We committed to consultation with all parties, including the First Nations Heritage Protection Alliance. In relation to details about meetings, senators put something to me. I don't have any information on that, but I would make the point—and obviously there have been quite a few questions about this last week from the opposition, which came from a different perspective—that this was a process that was actually begun by the opposition when in government. In fact, the now Deputy Leader of the Opposition, Ms Ley, was the minister who commissioned the paper and contacted the First Nations heritage alliance to provide advice on the options canvassed in the paper.