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

What an exercise we just saw from the minister! It wasted more time than it would have taken for everyone on this side and on the crossbench to table their reports and wasted more time than it would have taken for every single report to be tabled by leave of this chamber. What a waste of effort from this minister attempting to defend the indefensible. Senator Duniam quite rightly showed this document with its massive redactions of the deals being done between the government and the Greens.

One piece isn't actually redacted. Let me read that to you so that those who are listening to this debate actually understand what is at stake here, particularly in my home state of Western Australia. This is talking about negotiations between the Greens and Labor at a time when, supposedly, Prime Minister Albanese had spoken about the nature-positive bill in Western Australia and said it was dead and buried. He said that that was it and that it was off the agenda. Yet here we have negotiations between Labor and the Greens: 'I would be grateful for your confirmation that the Australian Greens will support the bills, including the amendments above'—redacted—'when they come before the Senate. I also seek confirmation, as discussed, that you will support the government on all procedural votes required to ensure the timely passage of the bills'—that is, let's guillotine it—'through the Senate as early as possible this sitting week'—and this is actually in the letter—'including on a guillotine or similar motion.'

So the Prime Minister says to Western Australia: 'Nature positive is gone. It's dead.' And here we have the government doing deals with the Greens not just to pass nature positive but to guillotine it through this place before an election. If that doesn't give you an indication of the kinds of arrangements that are going to be made between the crossbench and the Labor Party if they do happen to form a minority government then I don't know what bigger wake-up call the Australian people—and particularly the people of Western Australia—could possibly need.

Let me again remind those listening in Western Australia what this nature-positive law is designed to do. If this nature-positive law, as it has been outlined, had been in effect 30 years ago in Western Australia, we would have no mining industry, we would have no gas industry and, in fact, we would have no agriculture industry. We would have none of the industries which make not only Western Australia wealthy but which make this entire country operate, channelling the funds—tax revenue and other revenue—that governments require to actually do the things that Australians like.

I ask the people of Western Australia: when we first heard about this nature-positive law, what was the first thing we heard about? I know Senator Smith, a fellow senator from Western Australia, would know the answer. The first thing we heard about was 60 kilometre an hour speed limits in the Pilbara. Think for a moment what it would do to the mining industry of Western Australia if you instituted 60 kilometre per hour speed limits throughout the Pilbara. That was an idea that was thought up in Canberra. That was thought up over here. Nobody who comes from Western Australia or who has ever taken even a passing glance at the mining industry and the way it operates would think that that was a remotely feasible idea, but this is the kind of ideologically driven thought bubble policy development that we get from this Labor government.

There are other examples as well. This is the Labor government that promised transparency. This is their transparency—blanking out whole pages. This is their definition of transparency: redacting whole pages of negotiations they're doing with the Greens on nature positive. I also remind you that they actually promised to introduce federal Aboriginal cultural heritage legislation. You might remember in Western Australia the amount of damage done by the state Aboriginal cultural heritage legislation. But not only do they now have the nature-positive bill tucked away in a secure filing cabinet in the Prime Minister's office—awaiting their deal with the Greens after the next election, if they're so lucky—but they also have that Aboriginal cultural heritage legislation tucked away in there as well.