mr flip flop

Tony Abbott in retreat over whether farmers should be able to veto coal seam gas mining

UPDATED Ben Packham
From: The Australian
August 15, 2011 12:23PM
96 comments


Coalition rejects Green gas bill
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Coalition rejects Green gas bill

The Coalition has refused to support a Greens bill giving farmers a greater say over coal seam gas mining.

(Coal seam gas on last breath says Greens
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The Greens will introduce a bill designed to give farmers more say over coal seam gas mining on their land.


TONY Abbott says coal seam gas companies should respect the rights of farmers of "prime agricultural land", but has rejected a Greens bid to hand landowners a veto over mining interests.

The Opposition Leader today retreated from his unqualified support of farmers over coal seam gas companies, which threatened to undermine his relationship with the nation's powerful mining industry.

On Friday, Mr Abbott told 2GB's Alan Jones that ?if you don't want something to happen on your land, you ought to have a right to say no?.

But after being accused of undermining the multi-billion dollar coal seam gas industry, Mr Abbott said he was referring to the farmers of only the most productive land.

?We support the mining industry, but we don't want to see prime agricultural land destroyed and we think that the rights of farmers should always be respected,? Mr Abbott said today.

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He said the opposition would not support the Greens private member's bill that would require written permission from landowners before gas companies were allowed on their land, saying the party wanted to destroy the mining industry.

?We won't support the Greens because the Greens are just against mining full stop,? Mr Abbott told reporters in Canberra.

?They are particularly against the coal industry that they want to close down.?

Greens Leader Bob Brown said Mr Abbott was "muddled" and "naive".

"Is he going to support farmers in their right, as he did on Friday, to say no to coal seam gas rolling over their farmlands?" Senator Brown said.

``The question for Tony Abbott is if you're not going to take up the Greens' legislative route to protect farmers, what's your alternative?''

He said the Greens were also uncomfortable at the prospect of working together with the Coalition, but they were prepared to act in the national interests.

Coalition resources spokesman Ian Macfarlane said Mr Abbott's comments on Friday had been misunderstood.

?Tony Abbott was only talking about prime agricultural land when he said farmers should have the right to say no,? Mr Macfarlane told ABC radio today.

?In terms of prime agricultural land, the very best land in Australia, there needs to be a clear exemption of that land from mining.?

Resources Minister Martin Ferguson said Mr Abbott had sent a clear signal to the vital resources sector.

?People have got to understand that this is also not just foreign investment. This is two major Australian companies, Santos and Origin,? he told Sky News.

?It's not for us as a commonwealth to intrude into the constitutional capacity of states historically to actually regulate on land mining activity.?

National Farmers Federation vice president Duncan Fraser said a uniform national approach to the dispute between farmers and miners was needed.

He said Queensland and NSW laws on mining access to farm land should be brought into line with Victorian and West Australia laws, which gave farmers a greater say.

"That would overcome the issue," he said.

"In Victoria and WA they have a sort of farmer's veto. If landholders don't want private companies to come in then mining companies respect that. That's obviously not the situation in Queensland and NSW."

Mr Fraser also warned that defining prime agricultural land would be fraught with difficulty.

"It's the $64,000 question, what is prime agricultural land?

"I'm a farmer from an area that is not prime but I feel my land makes an important contribution.''

He added that while the access issue was primarily a state one, the federal government also had a role to play.

"The federal government has a role to play they can play an influential role, they get some royalties after all, and they can put the pressure on to get a national approach to this issue."