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

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Minister representing the Minister for the Environment and Water (Senator Wong) to questions asked by Senator Cash and myself today relating to Aboriginal cultural heritage.

The Labor government says that there's nothing to see here. Of the federal Aboriginal cultural heritage act there's 'nothing to see here'. The trouble with that is that's exactly what the state Labor government said when they passed this legislation through the state parliament. In fact, they put it through as urgent rushed legislation to deal with a very narrow issue—the Juukan Gorge issue. They said: 'Don't worry about this legislation. It's all good. We've checked everything out. It's tickety-boo. We don't need a parliamentary inquiry into it. We don't need to look at the impacts on farmers. We don't need to look at the impacts on regional communities. We don't need to look at the impacts on mining. It's all fine. We'll just rush it through parliament. We've got the numbers. Don't worry about it.'

We get worried when we hear the federal Labor government say, 'We've got a cultural heritage act in the works; we've committed to doing it,' but they can't reveal any detail about it. As far as I can tell, there's been zero consultation with the agricultural community about the form of this legislation. There's been zero consultation with the opposition about it. The shadow minister has told me directly that he has not been approached by the minister; he hasn't been invited to any consultation or asked about the coalition's views on these issues. The government says, 'It used to be bipartisan!' Sorry, but that doesn't sound very bipartisan, if you're not talking to the shadow minister about this at all.

You're not talking to the farming community. You're not talking to regional communities. I was in Katanning a week ago, when 650 locals turned up to a town hall meeting, concerned about the impacts of this legislation. That's 650 people in a community of 3,500 people. Think about that for a moment. Think about what that sort of a percentage would be in the city. There were plenty of people there who weren't directly affected by the state Labor legislation. One woman stood up. She had a B&B on a small block of land. She said: 'I'm not impacted by this legislation, but I'm here because I care. I care about my community. I care about the farmers. I care about the other businesses that are trying to operate in this community.'

I went to another community function in Dawesville. Again, Dawesville is an urban area; it's on the outer fringes of the Perth metro region, but it's an urban area. There'd be a few blocks over 1,100 square metres, but certainly not the majority. That room was full to overflowing. There were over 250 people in that room. The level of concern about this legislation is something that, quite literally, I've not seen before, certainly in my time in this place.

Senator Wong says, 'The opposition is just trying to stir things up about the Voice.' Senator Cash didn't mention the Voice. I didn't mention the Voice. Those meetings weren't called because of the Voice; they were called because the community is deeply concerned about where this is heading. Those opposite can say, 'This is all just a state Labor government,' but the point is: it is a state Labor government—a state Labor government who also said, 'Nothing to see here.'

Louise Pratt (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And the oppostion supported the bill. You've forgotten that.

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

Senator Pratt, you know full well that this was guillotined through the parliament, with no chance of an upper house inquiry when the state Labor government has an overwhelming majority. The state opposition did not vote for the bill; they didn't oppose the bill, because the government had assured them that it was all fine—it was researched and consulted on; it was positive legislation. How quickly did that come unstuck, Senator Pratt, as soon as we knew the detail?

Andrew McLachlan (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Brockman. Senator Sterle.

Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

STERLE () (): I, too, rise to make a contribution. I listened intently to Senator Brockman. I know Senator Brockman's commitment to rural and regional Western Australia, and I've enjoyed working on the Senate Standing Committee on Rural and Reginal Affairs and Transport with Senator Brockman for many years. In fact, Senator Brockman, I wish you were still there; we miss you, seriously. I have worked on that committee for 18 years and I've chaired either the legislation or the references committee for 15 years. I've spent a large chunk of my time in this parliament representing the best interests of Australia's food and fibre producers and processors, and I get that.

I must clarify a few things, if I may. I heard what Senator Brockman said, but I will say this: I have not spoken to any of my colleagues in Western Australia about this. I've not spoken to the minister or any of them in the WA state Labor government about this.

I only know what I've read in the papers, and I have seen the photos of big town halls and the angry farmers. I've seen that. I take on board that Katanning has a population—and you were there—of 3,000, and no doubt they came from far and wide, but that's still a significant number of upset people. I get all of that sort of stuff.

I read today's West Australian and saw there was a number of upset people. Senator Brockman, you've been around for a long time and you also know how this works. We have been told very clearly, and I've read it clearly in the paper and I've heard it in commentary, that the state opposition did not oppose the bill. Now, you said it was guillotined. I know how the guillotine works because I'm the only proponent in this chamber of 76 senators, regardless of being in government or opposition, who always screams for the guillotine at damn two o'clock in the bloody morning when everyone is talking rubbish. So, Mr Deputy President, through you—and I'll withdraw if I've upset anyone—I know how the guillotine works.

But there is a difference. You say that there was no consultation. I've spoken to people in mining. A person I spoke to last Monday night at a function said there was no shortage of consultation. He wanted me to know that because he also wanted me to pass on the message to Minister Plibersek that there had been a heap of consultation; it's just that a lot of people didn't turn up. This is what I've been told. I have no reason to make this stuff up. So there's a little bit of mischief going on there.

I'll get back to the use now and again of the fantastic instrument that is the guillotine, and I wish we had more of it. There's a difference in being guillotined, if that was the case, and the difference is in voting for a piece of legislation or not voting for a piece of legislation. We've seen the guillotine rolled out in this place many times over the years, and we've seen both sides oppose it. We've seen the Australia Labor Party oppose the guillotine or get guillotined, but then go and vote against a bill. On your side, Mr Deputy President, we've seen the LNP, when Labor has rolled it out, oppose it, but they certainly don't fall in line behind it and vote for it. So there are some real misconceptions here.

I say this with my hand on my heart: next Saturday I was hoping—I was invited—to be a guest of the Livestock and Rural Transport Association of Western Australia at their national conference in Busselton. I would have loved to have been there—I have a convoy here on Saturday that I will be addressing—because I would get to the bottom of how tough things are, I have no doubt. But it's very mischievous of the LNP to want to tip this bucket of 'it's all your fault; you didn't consult; you rammed it through'. There's still no explanation: why did the two Liberal members in the House vote for it? I can't answer that. We should tell the truth. I think there are four Nats in there, too, who voted for this piece.

Could it have been explained a lot better? Absolutely. I have no argument there. I wish it had got to the stage where it could have been explained. And I understand the frustrations when people have a heck of a lot of questions and they're not receiving answers to their questions. I get that. I've been in opposition for many years. In my previous life as a union organiser I used to ask a lot of questions, and no-one wanted to answer them—and when they did, half of them thought they could lie to get their way around them. It was very, very frustrating.

I also note, and Senator Pratt may be able to help me out here, that the minister, Minister Buti, has now said that nothing is off the table. I believe that's what I read in the Sunday Times the other day. I read that they want to revisit this and start talking again. Let's hope that we get to a situation. I'm not afraid to say at times, if I haven't got something right, 'Let's work together and try to get something right.' I have this vision and this hope that the Western Australian state government will sit down with industry, who should now engage—they should've engaged earlier, instead of just saying they're not turning up to the meetings—and, hopefully, we can get some pacifying here.

Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What we're seeing in Western Australia right now is the most egregious attack on the family home in our nation's history. It is the dream of almost every Australian to own their own home and have the right to be sovereign in that territory of their home. It's summed up in perhaps our most popular cultural movie, The Castle. As Darryl Kerrigan says, 'A man's home is his castle'—except, now, in Western Australia.

Let me be very clear: this legislation in Western Australia applies to any block of land over 1,100 square metres. That's a quarter of an acre. I don't know exactly the specifications of Mr Kerrigan's block in the movie The Castle, but it looked to be about a quarter of an acre block.

He and his family would be captured by this legislation, which, effectively, tells him he couldn't build that shed, which he probably didn't have council approval for anyway—he couldn't do anything—in his backyard because the regulations under this legislation say that activities involving the removal of up to 20 kilograms of material require an Aboriginal cultural heritage survey—20 kilograms. You can't take more than 20 kilograms in your suitcase at the airport. That's what it is. It's a suitcase full of dirt. You move that amount of dirt, and you're captured by this legislation. Your rights as a freehold landowner in this country have been totally traduced by the Western Australian Labor government. All we're asking from this federal government is to rule this out, to rule that out so that the homeowners of this country and this nation can sleep at night knowing that they won't have their castle taken away from them, like the Western Australian Labor government has done over the past few months.

I want to respond directly to Senator Sterle, who raised some questions earlier. He is claiming, somehow, that the Liberal and National parties in Australia voted for all of these requirements, which are the ones I have read out plus many others. That's not the case. That's not what happened. Senator Sterle tried to claim some kind of ignorance, and I must say he did so quite successfully, because he obviously doesn't understand the details of this legislation. The legislation itself did not have these requirements about 20 kilograms of material and 1,100 square metres of land being captured. It simply set up a new framework for cultural heritage in response to the Juukan Gorge incident. The detailed issues that we have raised here that go to the heart of taking away people's rights in their home happened under regulation by the minister after the passage of the legislation. They weren't subject to the parliament or the scrutiny of the Western Australian Legislative Assembly. Now, of course, that's a matter for them in Western Australia, and there's a backlash brewing over there, which I think and hope will succeed in seeking change, but here in this place we do have our own parallel process under the minister for environment designing a new framework for Aboriginal cultural heritage. All we are asking is for this government to rule that out, for Labor senators to say they don't support that. The very clear thing here for Labor senators, especially those from Western Australia, is do they support people on more than 1,100 square metres of land having to go and pay thousands of dollars—tens of thousands of dollars, we were told, sometimes—before they do basic things to their own property? It's a very simple question, and it's a live one, given the reforms that are being pursued in this place.

Senator Sterle also mentioned that somehow there had been all this consultation, and he mentioned the mining industry. That's great, isn't it? That's fantastic. I'm as big a supporter of the mining industry as any other, but this is not about them. The mining industry can deal with this. It's not an issue for them. They can afford to pay the cultural heritage surveys, and there's no doubt many of these mining companies just supported it because they thought this was the easiest path for them. Good luck to them. But we should also here, in this place, be defending the people who just want to pay their mortgage, who just want to own a home. I'm a bit surprised that the Labor Party seem to only be caring about the interests of the mining companies here. Senator Sterle said, 'The mining companies support it, so it's all sweet.' This affects a lot more than just the mining industry. What about the basic and hard-working homeowners of this nation and putting them at ease? They're already suffering under massive increases in interest rates. They are struggling to pay their mortgages. They don't need another thing to keep them awake at night, and the Australian Labor Party could help here by ruling any of these ridiculous restrictions and liens going onto people's property and by returning to the principle that when you own a freehold parcel of land in this country, you are a king or a queen of that land. It is your right to do what you like with it, and you shouldn't have governments taking away those rights, like the Western Australia Labor government has.

Jana Stewart (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I feel like it must be a good day on our side when there is nothing coming from the opposition that questions our policies or our legislation. The questions that we received today are things that WA parliament is doing. I don't know if they realise that we're actually in the federal parliament, and they should, maybe, be asking some questions and attempting to criticise some of the things that we're doing here. But they want to focus on what the WA parliament is doing. I think the question is really simple: do you value Aboriginal cultural heritage in this country?

We have heard that both sides of this place agree that having a national conversation about protecting our cultural heritage is something that we all should be doing because we actually don't want to see something like the Juukan Gorge happening again, do we? There was national outrage—rightly so. If those opposite are now saying that they are happy for something like that to happen again, that we shouldn't be having a conversation about protecting our ancient history in this place, then they are wildly out of step with the Australian people. They are wildly out of step with the Australian people if that is what they think—that the destruction of cultural heritage in this place is acceptable. Because that is what I hear from across the other side. Make no mistake, this is actually just a scare campaign against the voice; that is all that this is. That is the only reason you would bring it to this place. So not only do you not want to hear from First Nations people about the things affecting us, you are also happy to talk about the destruction of our heritage—your heritage, too. That is what you are saying—that you don't want to hear from us or see us either on any of your country at all.

The conversation that is ahead of this country right now is about bringing us together. It is about listening to First Nations people about things that affect us and you. We want to have conversations about protecting our cultural heritage, not just for First Nations people but because protecting our cultural heritage in this country is for everybody. It is for everybody. It is something that we should all be incredibly proud of and feel like we own a piece of—46,000 years, gone in a blink. Thousands of Australians travel every year to see places around the world like Stonehenge, the Vatican and the Coliseum because they are thousands of years old. We have such a treasure here in this country of our own history, and those opposite are happy to lay the foundation for that to be destroyed, because that is exactly what I'm hearing from the other side—fear mongering, scare campaigns.

The proposal that is before the Australian people is simply about a couple of things. It is about recognising the oldest continuous culture in the world in our country's founding document, a history that every Australian should be proud of. It is about listening to First Nations people about the matters that affect us. Because everybody knows when you've got a challenge in your life, the best person to help solve that challenge is you. That is exactly the proposition that Aboriginal people are asking for. We want to be engaged on issues that affect us.

At the end of the day, it is about better results, actually. We don't want to continue to live in a world where we are not equal. I don't want my sons to inherit a world where they are not equal. I don't want your kids to grow up in a world where First Nations people are not equal with your children, your grandchildren, your nieces and nephews, whoever it might be. That is a country that all of us should be unhappy to leave to our next generation, actually. This is about uniting the nation. It is about uniting 65,000 years of history with the Australia that we are in today in our Constitution. It is nothing more; it is nothing less.

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

I would just like to reflect a little on the remarks of Senator Stewart and to emphasise that this country could have its 1967 referendum moment in 2023 if the proposition before them was run about constitutional recognition of Indigenous people. We could have the 1967 moment in 2023. Unfortunately, what Australians are being asked to do later this year, perhaps October the seventh or October the 14th, is to agree to something different—that is, the constitutional enshrinement of a body of which they know nothing about.

The government could have proposed a very different pathway. The government could have said: 'We are going to bring to the parliament legislation and we are going to have a debate and we are going to create a voice and we are going to allow that voice to function and we are going to see how that voice functions, and, when it builds, maintains and strengthens and has the confidence of the Australian people, we're going to put it in the Constitution.' I think that is a better, more sensible way to proceed.

Jana Stewart (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Great! You had a decade to do it, and you didn't.

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

I'm happy to co-sign a letter to the Prime Minister, Senator Stewart, encouraging him to do that. I'd be delighted to co-sign that letter with you.

Andrew McLachlan (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Stewart, Senator Smith listened to you in silence.

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

I don't doubt for a moment the sincerity of the great majority of people in this parliament, both in the Senate and the House of Representatives—perhaps not unanimous but the great bulk of people—who are absolutely ready and excited about the opportunity to put into our Constitution a proper and thorough and decent recognition of Indigenous heritage. As Senator Stewart says, quite rightly, this isn't just the heritage of Indigenous people; this is now the heritage of every Australian. So that offer stands. And, if the referendum is unsuccessful, I will absolutely be committing myself to the idea of a form of constitutional recognition in our founding document that is not somewhere in the middle or somewhere at the end but is right at the very top. I have confidence that many, many Australians will embrace that and say yes to that—that that 1967 moment can happen in 2024 or 2025.

During question time a number of coalition senators took the opportunity to bring to the Senate a debate that is happening in the Western Australian community at the moment. That debate is about the preservation of cultural heritage. Senator Stewart asked a question: 'Does the coalition believe in cultural heritage?' The answer to that is: 'Absolutely, yes, it does.' In this debate, I can perhaps bring a perspective that others can't, because the inquiry that was conducted into the Juukan Gorge matter was conducted by the Joint Standing Committee on Northern Australia, of which I was a member. It's interesting, because concerns that are now in the Western Australian community about the cultural heritage laws that have been enacted by the WA parliament—concerns about that work, that consultation, the engagement with stakeholders—are not new. In fact, the dissenting report that was part of the Juukan Gorge inquiry has this to say, under the heading 'Replacement of Aboriginal Heritage Act 1972 (WA)':

The Committee indicates (paragraph 1.27) it is conscious that many stakeholders have reservations about the proposed legislation, detailing a number of specific concerns.

That proposed legislation talked about in the dissenting report is in fact the cultural heritage laws which are now enacted in Western Australia. It goes on to say:

Given the consultation for the Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Bill 2020 included consultation with more than 550 participants, including 40 workshops and 130 submissions, followed by a second consultation phase with more than 500 participants attending workshops across the state and a further 70 submissions, the final legislation is unlikely to fully satisfy all stakeholders.

It is disappointing that the Committee—

I look forward to continuing my contribution later this afternoon.

Question agreed to.