Their call comes as yet another committee was established to look at the impact of CSG and shale extraction, and Frydenberg said in October that he would put the issue of the right to say no on the agenda of the next meeting of COAG mining and energy ministers this Friday.
Queensland’s 2010 Land Access Code for CSG-LNG says nothing about landholders’ rights to say no, but is more about how to liaise with landholders before and during operations.
Among other things, the 79 landholders, farmers and traditional owners who wrote to Frydenberg want an Australian Consumer and Competition Commission inquiry to investigate whether the CSG industry has engaged in “unconscionable conduct” in their dealings with landholders.
Queensland Senator Glenn Lazarus called for the Senate select committee to look into CSG after the recent suicide of Queensland farmer George Bender who claimed he was bullied by CSG companies threatening his land.
The 79 landholders, traditional owners and farmers also want the Commonwealth to give state and territory governments six months to deliver legislative changes to legislate landholders and traditional owners’ legal right to say no to access by coal and CSG companies, and if they are not forthcoming, create national legislation using relevant powers.
The signatories include beef graziers, wine-makers, landholders in Queensland’s gas fields and the Hunter Valley’s coalfields, and traditional owners from the Kimberley, the Northern Territory and NSW.
Forseeing this battle ahead of time, Queensland Resources Council CEO Michael Roche said last month that politicians were obligated to “calmly” explain the difference between the “crude right of veto and the more useful right to have a say in how and when land may be accessed”
He said Queensland’s longstanding land access laws struck a fair balance between providing the resources’ wealth benefits to the community while respecting farmers’ rights to keep running their businesses.
“Those laws require resource companies to understand a farmer’s business and how they might affect that business before they enter the land,” Roche said.
The law makes it the resource company’s responsibility to arrange compensation for any impacts on the farmer’s business and both parties must agree to this contract before any impacts occur.
Roche said that more than 5000 conduct and compensation agreements have been struck between resource companies and landholders under the Land Access Framework that has been operating since 2010.
These laws draw no distinction between freehold and leasehold farming land, so both owners and leasehold farmers are recognised and compensated.
This doesn’t cut it for Lock the Gate Alliance national coordinator Phil Laird, who said resources companies should not be allowed to “bully and intimidate” farmers and traditional owners and to “drag them through the courts”
“Many farmers and Traditional Owners feel isolated and powerless against mining companies and are suffering severe stress as a result,” he said.
“Our political leaders must do more to protect people from the worst excesses of the mining and gas industries, and they must do it now.”
Letter signatory Peter Martin says he has been forced into arbitration by a coal mining company seeking to access his land in the Southern Highlands of NSW, and has questioned how fair the system is for landholders “facing off against mining giants”
“I’ve experienced firsthand the severe bullying and unethical tactics employed by mining giants. The system hands them all the power and hangs us out to dry. It’s completely unacceptable in modern Australia,” he said.
“There has been enough talk about the rights that farmers and landholders ‘should’ have to protect their land, their water and their communities.
“What this COAG meeting needs to give is the right under law to say no to mining companies if we choose.”
Another letter signatory, Nyikina leader Dr Anne Poelina, said she was “not against resource development if it can be done in an ethical and responsible way”; but she believes mining companies only tend listen to indigenous groups who support them – and claimed that those who oppose mining on their land were not given a fair hearing.
“We are at a critical point in our history where some of the proposed mining and unconventional gas developments present a real threat to the land, water, food and energy security, as well as our Kimberley way of life,” she said.
“If science and industry is not certain of the safety, and the cultural issues are not resolved; traditional custodians must have the right to veto mining on their land.”
