Redpencil. You and many others of late talk of "a resource that...

Redpencil. You and many others of late talk of "a resource that belongs to all Australians". I can't see the validity of this argument. If the miners and their investors did not risk huge amounts of capital to unearth these commodities, they would remain worthless in the ground and of little use to anyone.

If there is an unloved and neglected tree in the garden and then somebody comes along, spends effort and time on nurturing it so that, finally, it produces fruit, who should have the moral right to that fruit? ... anyone who just happens to live on the property where the tree grows, or the one (or ones) who did the work and made the expenditures which turned a formerly useless and unproductive tree into the productive one it has now become?

I don't see that 'the Australian people' have any particular rights to the value produced by the miners. In any case they have already been doing OK getting something for nothing via company taxation and state royalties.

Tez