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

enator BROCKMAN () (): I rise today to continue talking about the failure of Labor governments at state and federal level to have any consideration for regional areas. At best, they ignore regional areas, and, quite frankly, sometimes regional areas are happy with that outcome. Sometimes they're happier to be ignored by state and federal Labor governments than to have the will of those governments imposed upon them, because, when that will is imposed without proper consultation, without proper inquiry and without proper governance processes, we see the failures borne by regional Australia over and over again.

The case in point, in my home state of Western Australia, is the Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Act, which has been pushed through parliament. Labor has decisive numbers in the parliament of Western Australia—that is a fact—so they can push through whatever legislation they want without proper consultation, without proper oversight and without proper inquiry. Unfortunately, the results of that come home most heavily upon the bush and upon the regions. People aren't unreasonable in this space. They want an outcome that's fair. An e-petition organised by my previous employers, the Pastoralists and Graziers Association of Western Australia, has already attracted, in just a few short weeks, 25,000 signatures—not asking for the bill to be scrapped or for nothing to be done in this space but just asking for a six-month delay. That's all they want. They just want a bit more time because this bill was hastily rushed through parliament and the consequences of it are unknown and dreadful.