Actually, there is a lot of misinformation in this discussion.

As you point out, the stratification of land ownership relating to surface rights and the Crown reserving the mineral rights has long been in place.

And usually, faced with a real development and real terms, farmers generally acknowledge that they benefit greatly from a mine being developed on their property. My own career background involves negotiating with landowners in relation to mineral exploration access and mine development arrangements.

Typically, if a resource is discovered on a farming property, the mining company will make a proposal to the farmer.

1. The mining company will purchase the property at a premium price compared with market. Often around twice market.

2. Usually the mining company does not require the whole of the acreage. It might require only 10 or 20% of the land area for the mine and associated facilities. The mining company will usually offer the farmer the right to farm the unused area as before for a peppercorn rental.

3. The farmer will be given the right to repurchase the rehabilitated property at the end of mine life for market price.

4. The farmer can work with the mining company so that during the mining and rehabilitation process the mine can put in place capital works (dams, contour drains etc) that add value to the property.

5. The stringent rehabilitation requirements mean that after mining the disturbed area is restored with soil that initially was removed and stored separately.

The outcome of these arrangements are very favourable for the farmer, and generally seen as such. For example, having sold the farm for two times market, the farmer can buy two more farms nearby for market price - pretty good when considering sons that might want to farm, or the economies of scale. With the, say, 80% of the the first farm, the farmer now has access to close to three times the land.

My experience is that when farmers understand arrangements of this nature, they generally become more favourably disposed to allow exploration and mining on their land.

Wow - where do I start here? As a farmer on the Liverpool Plains currently under exploration from CSG - they do not buy the property - you end up living on a considerably reduced asset with miners coming and going all the time and they destroy the water resources as the American experience has shown. Other buyers are not interested in purchasing a property with CSG on it. We are simply not interested in selling or farming anywhere else. This area is unique - good rainfall and fabulous soils. Yes things can grow in soil and water but if you want to find the water - and there are no spare licenses in the system - an inferior soil will not grow the way they grow here. As for living next door to a mine, get out of your Sydney offices and look at the Hunter Valley - would you want to? As for rehabilitation - there has been no successful rehabilitation where the land has been returned to its former condition. In fact Muswellbrook shire is filling its mines with waste from North Sydney as these areas cannot be rehabilitated. Please do not publish such misleading comments without doing your research and finding out from people who know.

As a former farmer myself in Queensland, I understand that it is the case in certain mining industries that they will purchase a property to begin mining, especially on large scale, open-cut mines such as Coal. Generally the mining company will pay higher-than-market prices for a property for such a mineral. However, this is not the case with CSG, which will place their pumps on the land that you own. As for rehabilitating the land, generally if a property is purchased for mining it is done with the intention of being a long-term project, often 30-40 years (a whole generation), and therefore any option to re-purchase the land would be futile. Also, taking into consideration inflation over such a period of time, it would be likely the a fair market value at the time of re-purchasing the land would be considerably and unaffordably higher than what the mining company paid for the property.

Another issue is if the farmer does not want to sell his land, ie for sentimental/family reasons, because the payout of the property would not cover the debt owing to the banks on the property farming issue, etc., then the mining company can be granted possesion of the land under the Constitution, under 'just terms', which would not be as high a value that the mining company offered in the first place. I agree that if the land holder had an interest in the minerals in the land, it would create a more balanced market system for the mining v farming dilemma.

One issue I would raise is the impracticallity of bestowing the interest in the minerals on a land owner now, which would substanitally increase in the value of the property, at a time when the real-estate industry is so slow. Ie, it would make it slower still. Perhaps a zoning of agricultural land only will solve the solution of who has mineral rights and who's mineral rights remain with the State Government?

nocsg and Matthew.

Thanks for your comments. I do acknowledge that my experience was with base metal/gold mines in areas that have rather less agricultural value than would be the case in some areas.

It is also true that coal mines do tend to require larger areas and that time frames can be long. And CSG does raise special issues as you both point out.

Ultimately, those seeking to extract minerals or CSG from tenements that cover prime farming land have to recognise that they need a "social contract" with the community and the affected farmers. The essential point I was making in my comments above was that if the farmers consider that they are being dealt with fairly, and on balance they are better off, they are likely to support mining.

And that is also the essence of what David is suggesting in exploring letting the farmer have an interest in the mineral production, whatever it might be. In the past, these issues have been negotiated between the farmer and the miner, with the State Government maintaining a keen interest in the outcome.

It is also necessary to acknowledge that the farmers, while holding the surface rights to the land, do not own the mineral rights, which in effect are owned by another party, who also have rights.

"In the past, these issues have been negotiated between the farmer and the miner, with the State Government maintaining a keen interest in the outcome" - sorry to say these negotiations are not negotiations - rather threats that can come on farmers land at any time and that they will be here regardless (in case of CSG) - in the case of the state government's "keen interest" - it is simply government sponsored theft of a landholders rights. A farmer is left powerless and their rights ignored as they are bullied into signing inadequate agreements that fail to protect - all for a short term opportunistic industry with real environmental questions. Only when city people realise that their food supplies are threatened - or at the very least incrediby expensive and contaminated - will there be a challenge to the present status quo. The state government has given these thieves a royalty holiday of 5 years from start of production so there is very little in it for the government and ultimately the people of NSW.

In Western Australia, the Mining Act gives an absolute power of veto over any decision to explore or mine for any mineral or petroleum product within the top 30 metres of the earth to the landowner, provided that the land is used for a productive purpose. This very sensible law has allowed the WA mining industry to become the strongest and most dynamic in Australia with few of the anti-mining concerns currently being heard in Queensland and NSW over the rapidly expanding coal and coal seam gas/shale gas industries.
As a former exploration manager of a mid-sized mining company which mostly mined on private farmland, I can commend these WA mining law provisions on private land to the other states and territories of Australia.