WA Liberal Party leader Libby Mettam has accused the Federal Government of creating obscurity around the Voice to Parliament, and said similar confusion over Western Australia's Aboriginal cultural heritage laws was behind her reason for switching sides on the Voice debate.
After passionately arguing for a Yes vote in April and stressing its importance to Indigenous recognition, Ms Mettam has changed tact ahead of a national referendum later this year.
"This is not about politics," Ms Mettam said told 6PR on Friday.
"But I have to take an approach that is in response to an experience that we have just had."
After her own backflip on the Voice, Ms Mettam wrote in a newspaper column on Friday that WA Premier Roger Cook's spectacular u-turn regarding the divisive heritage laws on Tuesday was unheralded by a state premier just eight weeks into his reign.
"Mr Cook's announcement the new laws would be repealed a month after they were enacted was the ultimate backdown," she wrote in The West Australian.
"After weeks of chaos and confusion, he told us he was now listening and that the new laws were too complicated and too prescriptive. They went too far and placed an unnecessary burden on WA property owners. Talk about an understatement.
"If only he had been listening for the past two months, or perhaps even two years ago, when the Opposition first raised these concerns."
Ms Mettam said the financial and emotional burden caused by the introduction of the laws was devastating on landowners, small business owners, industry, farming, and agricultural groups, not to mention First Nations leaders and Traditional Owners and was foreseeable.
When Labor "rammed" the laws through Parliament In November 2021, the Opposition was briefed just two days before they were debated.
"We warned about the unintended consequences of poorly drafted legislation," she wrote.
"In my speech I said: 'We can only assume that the Premier believes this Government has done its due diligence and that the Bill is perfect. If it is not, the proposed legislation will have far-reaching implications … All of the unintended outcomes will fall on the shoulders of this Government'."
Ms Mettam also urged the Premier two months ago to delay the July 1 start date of the new Act, saying proper processes, guidelines, education and training were yet properly established.
"We always supported the intent of the legislation to protect Aboriginal and cultural heritage and another Juukan Gorge disaster," she said.
"But it had become blatantly apparent that the Government was not ready to implement these laws, and the fallout would be disastrous.
"I warned it is a long road to success if the first perception is it is a failure.
"But the newly minted Premier, keen to make his mark in the role in his first week, dismissed Opposition concerns as 'dog whistling'.
"Five weeks later, we are expected to believe this extraordinary 180 is due to his consultative, collaborative leadership style."
Proposed amendments to old 1972 Act that will return to replace the failed new laws would see proponents and Native Title parties have the same right of review for Section 18 decisions, which led to Juukan Gorge being destroyed by Rio Tinto, with clear timelines and an ability for the Premier to call-in a decision of 'State significance'.
