BOTH major parties fail to recognise the importance of food security and landholders' rights, writes LESLIE WHITE
At a time when we accept the world needs to produce 70 per cent more food by 2050, one would think preserving farmland and water resources would be a key to planning.
Yet neither Labor nor the Liberals are giving these things the importance they deserve in the mining-versus-farming debate.
Opposition Leader Tony Abbott adopts whatever position he thinks the audience wants to hear, while the Government spouts drivel about how giving landowners the right to decide what happens on their land endangers the mining industry.
The mining-versus-farming debate has been hot in Queensland and NSW, and the issue is about to erupt in Victoria.
About 33 applications have been made to explore for coal-seam gas and there is controversy in the Bacchus Marsh irrigation district over a brown-coal exploration licence.
Mining companies generally take the "divide and conquer" attitude to a farming district.
When one landholder refuses access, the company approaches the neighbours.
While the law requires "agreement" before mining, the fact is the landholder would have to win Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal and Supreme Court fights to keep miners off their land.
And only 74c from every $1000 made from coal-seam gas mining giants has been paid to farmers.
Mr Abbott has done this debate no good whatsoever.
Ten days ago he said farmers should have the right to say no to mining on their land.
Two days later he backflipped, saying mining should not be stifled.
The Government said Mr Abbott's initial comments endangered the mining industry, so its position is no better.
The Greens are trying to push a Bill through Parliament this week that would give landowners the right to refuse mining companies access to their land, but Mr Abbott has refused to support it, saying the Greens are simply anti-mining.
They are. But the issue is that farmers should have the right to refuse mining companies entry to their land.
The Nationals need to make their voice heard, regardless of how uncomfortable it might make the Liberals.
Victoria cannot risk what has been seen in other states, where mining applications were approved before adequate research and planning was done.
A Chinese mining group now owns 43 farms near Gunnedah in NSW, mining companies own 400,000ha of Queensland farmland and some farmers at Kingaroy cannot sell their beef because mining chemicals entered their aquifer.
The level of contamination is low, but the fact is nobody has a clue how the chemicals got in the aquifer or how to get them out.
Chemicals used in a technique used for accessing coal-seam gas known as "fracking" - fracturing rocks using chemicals - have gotten into farmers' bores in the US.
Parts of New York state have banned fracking, as has France. South Africa has put a moratorium on it and so has NSW, which is holding an inquiry into coal seam gas.
Victoria needs to do so before approving mining applications.
A depleted aquifer could affect food production in a localised area for a long time.
Mining applications that cannot prove beyond all doubt they will not damage, deplete or contaminate groundwater should be refused.
And the less than 5 per cent of the nation considered prime agricultural land should be protected, too. Farming is a sustainable industry providing sustainable employment.
Mining is, by definition, finite - the commodities being mined will run out.
Yet countless mining exploration licences already cover millions of hectares of our food bowl - the Murray-Darling Basin.
Governments need to take a long-term perspective and realise farmland and groundwater are non-negotiable requirements for the future.
- Leslie White is The Weekly Times' national affairs writer
