❓ Mr. Bolt questions the Premier regarding Alcoa's unlawful forest clearing, government oversight, and alignment of WA's environmental protections with national standards. The Premier responds by highlighting government actions to update Alcoa's operating regime and accuses the opposition of jeopardizing jobs.

Alcoa—Forest clearing96.Mr David Boltto thePremier:I refer to the Commonwealth's $55 million enforcement outcome against Alcoa for unlawful clearing in WA's northern jarrah forest. Given that the public expects unlawful environmental harm to be detected and acted on decisively, I ask the following.(1) When did the government become aware of the clearing and consider it may be unlawful, and whatenforcement action was taken?(2) Why was clearing not detected and stopped earlier and does the Premier accept that this reflects a failure of WA's compliance and ministerial oversight?(3) Does this expose a gap between WA's approval regime and national environmental protections, and what changes will the government implement to address it?Several members interjected.The Speaker:Members!

Mr Roger Cook replied:(1)–(3) I thank the member for the question. As people are aware, we are making changes to the regime under which Alcoa operates to ensure that it meets contemporary standards for environmental protection and community expectation. As part of that, we are applying the Environmental Protection Act over its entire mining operation to ensure not only that it mitigates its impact on the environment, but also that its rehabilitation work is consistent with the conditions that the EPA provides. I have already provided advice to this chamber about the extra monitoring that the Department of Water and Environmental Regulation has required of Alcoa to ensure we are monitoring its activities and that it does not impact on waterways and, in particular, water catchments. We will continue to work with industry to make sure we continue to benefit from the prosperity that it provides, but the fact of the matter is that Alcoa's state agreement, I think, is tied to its state agreement of 1969 or something to that effect. It is one of the very earliest state agreements in this state. Because of that, we need to modify the state agreement so we bring it to contemporary standards and expectations about its operations. That is something that my government is committed to. Since that state agreement was struck, no government has had the courage and the determination to take those steps.Why do we do this? We do it because thousands of workers in the member's electorate depend on the jobs that Alcoa creates. Thousands of Western Australians depend on the royalties it provides and want to take a pay packet home to their families in the member's electorate. The very clear message from the Liberal Party and from the member for Murray–Wellington is that they oppose jobs. They oppose the jobs that literally thousands of his constituents depend on. The member should make it clear to his electorate—we will be making it very clear to them—that he opposes them keeping their jobs. We are committed to keeping their jobs. We are committed to protecting the environment. We are committed to working with industry to hold it to account and to standards that meet modern-day expectations. We know from questions from the member opposite that he does not care about those jobs. He does not care about the families in his community. He does not care about the workers who depend on the work that Alcoa has done in this region. We will make absolutely sure that his constituency hears about that in the lead-up to the next election. Alcoa—Forest clearing