Whilst driving my daughter to the Queensland Primary School Athletics Championships at QE2 in Brisbane I was very encouraged that I could have a discussion on one of my pet private interests - trees.
It was one of those preferred, father-daughter moments, away from screaming to get off Facebook, “twimblr”, or whatever they call it, or arguing about whether the Greens' social agenda works really well, take Amy Winehouse for instance.
Yes, it was a beautiful morning. I collected a coffee and Caroline grabbed a drink at the Moonie Roadhouse, then thirty kilometres later we turned down the Cecil Plains road.
The discussion was about how you tell good country from bad. Trees darling, that's how. Brigalow (Acacia harpophylla), belah (Casuarina cristata), myall (Acacia pendula) are all good and generally a sign of heavy, self-cracking loams, soils that are very productive. Bendee (Acacia catenulata), bull oak (Allocasuarina luehmannii) and, I am sorry darling, most of those flowering wattles, are a sign that the country is light.
We drove past the town of Cecil Plains out onto the deep, black soil plains that run to Toowoomba. "Now this darling is prime agricultural land. Flat, black and back-to-back crops." The land is tightly held and expensive. "Dad", Caroline asked, "what are all these signs at the corner of every field".
The signs are there because they are going to mine this and farmers are protesting that they are going to be walked all over by companies seeking to mine gas.
It has been stated by some, who should know better, that farmers have never had a property right over the coal, oil and gas under their property. Without being too verbose, let's start from the beginning.
Back in the days of the Magna Carta, another Latin phrase summed up the law: cujus est solum, ejus est usque ad coelum et usque ad inferos, "where one owns the ground, one’s ownership extends up to the heavens and down to the infernal regions".
This was the longstanding common law until around the 16th century when the Crown resumed gold and silver rights. Miner's have also had a longstanding right to prospect for resources even while the rights for extraction where held by landowners.
I had to tell Caroline that in Queensland the farmer had the rights of ownership taken off them to help Australia during the First World War, but then the government realised it was on a good thing and never handed them back. Perhaps the Kaiser remains a threat, or more likely the government realised that it can make a lot of money by selling those rights to mining companies.
Other states in Australia have followed the same path, Victoria and Western Australia, due to the prospect of World War II, South Australia in 1971 and, the final act, in New South Wales, in 1981. Often rights were taken from farmers without compensation. Unlike in the movie The Castle, there is no constitutional requirement for state governments to offer just terms.
Just like Dennis Denuto, Australians have picked up the "vibe" on this one. Farmers are getting touched, a proper assessment of the impact of coal seam gas mining on aquifers has not been done and the value of our prime agricultural land is being put at risk.
In Queensland, if no agreement between the farmer and miner is reached after 50 business days, the matter can be sent to court. The mining company can then immediately come onto the farmers' property even before the court makes its decision. Farmers' rights may no longer extend to the "infernal regions" but last time I checked they still owned the gates and the roads that mining companies must use.
The consequence of this imbalance in negotiating positions is that farmers get about 75 cents for every $1000 that is made from coal seam gas mining.
Australia needs mining to pay our bills but property rights are just as essential if you believe in the market economy or justice. What is the point of generations going through the privations of going without, to pay off and improve a block of land, if at some arbitrary point of time, a person you have never met, from a transaction you were never part of, can show a superior ownership right to the one your family worked generations for.