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

Well, I hope we will. You say, 'Will we?' but it's up to the minister and the government to reveal the statement of reasons as to what the basis for this decision actually was. Until we see that statement of reasons, quite frankly, this looks arbitrary. It looks capricious and it looks as though it's a Labor-Greens decision to block an extraordinary project for the future of Australia—for jobs, revenue for the state government and revenue for the federal government. It's vital for the future of this great country that we deal with these issues.

We saw in my home state of Western Australia the absolute debacle that was the Aboriginal cultural heritage legislation. The handling of that by the state Labor government caused absolute chaos and confusion for months, to the point where they had to repeal their own act. Guess what happened when they did that? The Labor Party, as the previous speaker said, had promised standalone Aboriginal cultural heritage legislation. Where has it disappeared to? It has disappeared because they know that the chaos and confusion that was caused by the Western Australian state act will be replicated federally if they pull it out of the bottom drawer. They're too frightened to reveal what they actually believe, and that's why this decision is also being kept secret.