When ministers drop media statements in the days leading up to Christmas, it’s usually a sign that they want to wash the decks of bad news.
One such release was by WA Water Minister, Simone McGurk, who issued a carefully worded statement that ‘water priorities reset to focus on practical measures.’
The media release quietly swept away seven years of this government’s efforts to consolidate six separate pieces of legislation that govern the state’s water resources management system into one.
McGurk claimed that ‘while the intent of legislative reform was to simplify water management, the feedback to date has indicated that many of the existing and long-standing arrangements are suitable.’
A good decision that says this minister can listen, unlike her college, Buti, who failed to hear the voice of the miners and farmers over the disaster that was coming with last year’s failed Heritage Act.
No doubt the Premier was also involved and has been looking at the legislative program for 2024. He too, no doubt, wanted to clear the decks, no doubt not wanting to spend the next 12 months leading up to the election in a fierce public debate over the merits of complex water legislation.
For the government, there is no upside to having a rerun of the chaotic heritage legislation roll out with angry farmers, miners, and property developers, pointing out the risks of handing over control of the state’s water resources to Indigenous groups, which is exactly what the new water legislation proposed.
Hence the timely media drop was aimed at the Indigenous and Green lobbyists, who will now have to make their disappointment felt over the noise of summer holidays and the cricket.
Another factor was that the Premier has no doubt had enough of rolling out former Premier McGowan’s agenda, and wants to focus 2024 on core priorities, like law and order, cost of living, hospital ramping and education outcomes. As the Voice Referendum proved, there are no votes in playing to the vocal Indigenous rights lobby.
Having already saved one minister from damaging the start of his premiership with the heritage fiasco, Cook is in no hurry to repeat the process next year.
It’s interesting to note that the water intervention is the third time in six months that the Premier has stepped in, to back the interests of the state, over special interest groups. Following the heritage intervention, he jumped into the dispute between Indigenous groups, who, backed by Greenpeace, had threatened the future of the $16.5 billion dollar Scarborough Energy Project.
The Premier quietly buried that money grab by announcing a raft of changes to the state’s environmental approvals processes, which he claimed was wrapping up investment in green tape for no environmental protection benefit.
These moves can be seen as a pre-emptive strike to head off more green lawfare that seeks to entrench traditional owners’ veto rights over land and water.
By pulling the water bill, which was all ready to proceed, Cook has stamped his mark on both cabinet and the state, signalling an end to the slow encroachment on private property rights to traditional landowners. Cook is shaping up to be an interesting leader who we may have all underrated.
