On Sunday, environment minister Greg Hunt urged mining companies to recognise the “moral right” of farmers to the land they owned or leased. Hunt was responding to a question from Barrie Cassidy about coal seam gas extraction: should he not simply “give the farmers a right of veto” over new developments?
Hunt rightly pointed out that the constitution granted powers of land management to the states, who also own everything below a farmer’s topsoil. They may lease it out to mining companies regardless of farmers’ wishes.
It’s yet another demonstration of the way that property, which so many liberals consider a natural right, is in fact utterly contingent on the way in which the state slices and dices the world in advance of its exploitation.
The tensions that this has given rise to between farmers and miners are long-standing. The former are aggrieved about the consequences of only owning the uppermost layer of their land. These include not just inconvenience, but the ruination of arable farms and scarce water reserves. It further rankles because of the way it runs against the grain of notions of ownership that are baked into the practices and psychological dispositions of those who work the land.
Cassidy is raising it now because that tension is starting to have tangible, tragic impacts, like the recent suicide of Queensland farmer George Bender. His death is evidence that this contradiction between different uses of land takes a psychological toll on those holding the rough end of the stick.
Supporters like Alan Jones and Glenn Lazarus are using Bender’s death as a stick with which to beat the government. The Queensland Resource Council alleges that they have “hijacked” the tragedy for political purposes but unfortunately for them, George Bender’s widow, Pam, disagrees.
Hunt’s fix? Gas companies, out of the goodness of their hearts, ought to promise “not [to] explore or extract on your land without your consent”.
He points to “progress” being made on this front in New South Wales, and vaguely mentioned that energy minister Josh Frydenberg – last seen arguing the moral case for coal – will press state counterparts to encourage gas companies to extend a veto right to farmers.
Whatever happens, then – it’s still vague – will depend on gas companies voluntarily renouncing their right to exploit a resource – the value of which will likely increase over time – on the basis of an entitlement by stakeholders that falls short of property ownership. As Hunt said:
It’s a moral right, it’s not, at this moment, because of the Constitution, a legal right. But frankly, in the 21st Century, the right way to do this is for the gas companies to effectively say, ‘We won’t assert our legal right over your moral right.’
Expecting this of the CSG industry may seem like cloud-cuckoo stuff, given that Pam Bender says that they “hounded and bullied George for 10 years”, after he fought against the impacts of fracking on his property.
If they were prone to compromise, or simply abandoning a resource when farmers didn’t like the idea of them mining it, wouldn’t they have taken this approach in the past?
The tightly organised group of activists, environmentalists and farmers, under the auspices of groups like Lock the Gate, have long campaigned on the notion of a local communities granting (or refusing) a “social license” to operate. It may be that further political pressure causes the extractors to take a more conciliatory line at some point in the future.
To go broader: if we’re capable of recognising one set of stakeholders apart from the owners of the resource, why not more? After all, the impacts of coal seam gas extraction extend far further than the patch of land immediately above any given project.
Throughout the world, fracking has been implicated in the pollution of water resources – with methane and other toxins – that service neighbouring farms, or entire communities. This is quite apart from the massive amounts of water the process consumes as a matter of course.
Chemicals arising from the process escape into the atmosphere, causing profound health impacts on people nearby, and adding to the sources of greenhouse gas pollution, especially methane.
There’s even the prospect of “induced seismic events”, as deep drilling and the injection of pressurised water cause earthquakes. These effects – unlike the imaginary externalities of wind farms, currently subject to a Senate Inquiry – are real and measurable.
Most of all, coal seam gas is a fossil fuel of the kind that climate scientists have long warned us that we need to do without, and must quickly move to stop extracting. The impacts of CSG extraction don’t just apply to one property, or one community, but to everyone.
So if Greg Hunt is proposing that one class of non-owner should have the final say over how a property is used, why should this right not be extended to everyone who will be affected by a particular project, and the industry as a whole?
Why shouldn’t, at a minimum, a farmer’s neighbours, residents of surrounding communities, and representatives of traditional owners also have a collective right of veto over whether a development goes ahead?
Property is only ever a transient relationship with a particular patch of earth, but people will have to go on dealing with the consequences of a particular owner’s decisions for the remainder of human history – especially regarding climate change.
Greg Hunt is right to suggest that property rights should not be impervious to other considerations. Only unrelenting political pressure will ensure that the CSG industry understands that property rights are contingent upon the consent of the community.
