Prime Minister denies State native title correspondence, Crook
Posted on Monday, 13 February 2012
ON the fourth anniversary of National Sorry Day, The Nationals WA Federal Member for O’Connor, Tony Crook MP, called on the Prime Minister to honour native title obligations to the States.
During Parliamentary Question Time today, Mr Crook asked the Prime Minister why the Government had reneged on the long-standing, bipartisan arrangement to fund 75 per cent of all native title compensation.
Mr Crook said the Prime Minister completely dismissed the issue and denied it had been raised with her by the State Government.
The Prime Minister told the Parliament she had first learned of this issue when she read it in the newspaper, and claimed she had not been contacted by the WA Premier on this issue.
Mr Crook said information available on the public record completely contradicted these claims.
“Correspondence between the Premier and the Prime Minister on this issue was tabled in the WA State Parliament in November 2011,” Mr Crook said.
Mr Crook said the fact the Prime Minister had forgotten about the correspondence demonstrated the Labor Government’s lack of interest towards Western Australia.
“They dismissed us on GST returns, they dismissed us on the Mining Tax, and now they are dismissing us on a bipartisan arrangement between the State and the Commonwealth that has stood in place for more than a decade.”
Mr Crook said he was disappointed that the Prime Minister had chosen to ignore his question.
“Coming from a Prime Minister who publicly speaks about closing the gap, the fact that she has turned her back on native title compensation is very disappointing.”
Mr Crook said native title compensation was set to become a major issue in WA.
“The State Government refers to this as WA’s second most significant financial issue – right behind the State’s GST rip-off.
“As the Treasurer of WA has said, this is a billion dollar plus issue,” Mr Crook said.
Mr Crook said if the Federal Government reneged on the decade old agreement, WA would be forced to bear the burden of compensating for native title claims alone.
Mr Crook said he hoped the Prime Minister would reconsider her response to this issue over coming days.