The WA opposition leader has requested Premier Roger Cook extend the State government's educative approach for the new Aboriginal Cultural Heritage (ACH) Act legislation until the 2025 State election.
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The Nationals WA Party leader Shane Love, who has promised to scrap and immediately set about the rewriting of the legislation if his party was to ever form government, made the proposal for the WA Labor government after attending a WAFarmers' meeting in Katanning on Monday.
Given the furore that erupted around the act in the months leading up to and in the weeks since the legislation first came into effect on July 1, he said it was clear the new legislation was unworkable.
"We've heard that the Premier has launched an educational process and will take an educative approach for the first 12 months of the introduction of this act," Mr Love said.
"I don't know exactly what that means, so he needs to spell that out.
"But given the level of concern around this legislation, I think we should actually be seeing the Premier making a pledge for that educational approach to go through to the next election and, in March 2025, let the people of Western Australia decide whether or not they want to see it withdrawn or rewritten."
With the 'Let Farmers Keep Farming' meeting attracting a fired-up crowd of more than 600 people, Mr Love said it was clear the regional and rural community understood the "debilitating effects" the ACH legislation would have on the regions, but that that message needed to get out to those people living in WA's metropolitan areas.
With WA's agricultural sector identified as the most heavily-regulated sector in the nation, Mr Love said the further imposition of the new ACH legislation demonstrated a complete lack of understanding of the scope, cost and dimension of interference the measures brought about for people living in regional WA.
