Cook said he would “absolutely” go in to bat for the resources sector more enthusiastically than his state and federal counterparts,given its economic importance to WA.
West Australian Premier Roger Cook.Trevor Collens
“It means that we as a state government in Western Australia,need to inform the national government and other governments about the role that the resources sector plays in our lives and in our economy,” he said.
“The resources sector kept New South Wales and Victoria afloat when they were in lockdown. The fact of the matter is that resources will place and will continue to play a significant role in our economy.
“Now,that doesn’t mean they have free rein,that doesn’t mean that they’re not regulated,but it does mean that we need to continue to listen to them so that we can keep Western Australians in jobs and that we can keep our economy growing.”
Cook was grilled on Monday about claims by former Environmental Protection Authority chairman Tom Hatton that.
was “unprecedented” and “inappropriate” and coloured “outside the normal lines of the interaction between the government and EPA”.
At the time,the debacle shone a spotlight on the WA Labor government’s relationship with big business in the state,given how effectively the resources industry was able to lobby the government against the proposed guidelines.
Cook said while he was not privy to McGowan’s conversation with Hatton,the former premier made no secret that he reached out to the EPA asking the guidelines be reconsidered.
He said the decision to revise the guidelines was ultimately a decision for the EPA and was independent of the government.
Cook said there was significant outrage within the industry because the proposal wasn’t “consistent with the consultation process that[the EPA] had undertaken leading up to that”.
The EPA’s March 2019 greenhouse gas guidelines were a draft proposal that formed part of a consultation process at the time.
When asked whether he would follow a similar path to his predecessor when faced with a similar situation Cook,said the EPA was a master of its own destiny,but it didn’t work in a vacuum.
“[The EPA] needs to understand the impact of its decisions,and it needs to consult with all its stakeholders,including industry,about the way it makes its decisions,and that’s ultimately the direction that we chose,” he said.
Cook said he was not picking sides when asked whether his support for the resources sector extended to
However,he voiced support for federal Labor’s laws.
“The Albanese government have got a mandate to undertake industrial relations reform,we want them to continue to work with the resources sector and industry to understand the consequences of their legislation,” he said.
“‘Same work,same pay’ is a piece of law,which is about making sure that resource companies don’t get away with paying people with their proper entitlements,just because they outsource those jobs to contractors.
“We want to make sure that people get great rewarding safe jobs in the resources sector,and so we support efforts to make that happen.”
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