Bob Katter (Kennedy, Katter's Australian Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for the Environment and Water. Minister, the EPBC Act effectively dispossesses the people who have lived and loved their land for generations—some 40,000 years. Is your government to continue lording itself about prioritising the double-degreed ideological know-alls' save-the-planet agenda? Or are they going to give precedence to the people who created the ALP—the people who did hard yakka for a big quid?

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) | Link to this | Hansard source

Thanks to the member for Kennedy for the question. With respect to the EPBC Act, I'll say two things relevant to the question. The first is in terms of approval times. The approval times that we're dealing with under the new legislation are significantly improved, and meeting timelines has been a very significant shift since this government came to power. The second thing that I would point to is that the legislation itself does deal with and has always dealt with heritage listings. Both National Heritage listings and World Heritage listings, where it's not often appreciated, do not simply deal with natural values. They deal with cultural values as well, and a large number of listings quite specifically include cultural values, and it has been the legal way to make sure that the principles that he has referred to in the question find their way into Australian law.