Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party, Leader of The Nationals in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

The issue here is that of course we acknowledge that landholders have an absolute right to what is present on their land. But, by reason of state governments over such a long period of time stealing hydrocarbonist materials from underneath their ground, they have lost those rights. They have lost those rights by reason of state government actions. In Queensland they lost them with the 1915 Petroleum Act. In South Australia, where Senator Birmingham is from and you too, Temporary Chairman, they lost them in 1971. In the Territory they lost them in 1953. In New South Wales Neville Wran gave a splendid second reading speech on how he was stealing those rights in 1983. That was quite recent. So it is very clear that, when people say that landholders never had the rights to coal, gas and oil underneath their places, that is not correct. They have never had the rights to silver, gold and iron ore, but they have had the rights to hydrocarbonist material. The problem is that to restore those rights you have to restore them at a state level. You cannot restore them at a federal level; you have to restore them at a state level.

I think it is a great idea to give those rights back to landholders at a state level from where they were stolen. That would obviously give landholders a vastly greater say in what is happening. I would presume, much to the dilemma of the Greens, that far from stopping the further development of mineral resources it would actually assist the further development of mineral resources just like it does in Texas and other places. We can see that once people realise there is a substantial return that gives their family a better standard of living they are more than willing to engage with the mining companies. What is happening at the moment is that they are getting ripped off. We have said this quite clearly a number of times. We did in the 2011 Senate inquiry, which I wrote the extension of terms for, to deal in a transparent way with coal seam gas.

It is important to understand the principles that the National Party stands behind. No. 1 is: do not go onto prime agricultural land. No. 2 is: do not destroy aquifers. Even though my political adversary put forward a bill for $150 million for further investigation and you would think prima facie that we would be fighting against it, I fought to make sure it was agreed to. No. 3 is: do not go next to people's quiet enjoyment. That is a term borrowed from rental tenancy agreements. No. 4 is: make sure a return goes back to the community. Royalties for Regions—who came up with that policy? It was the National Party. No. 5 is: there be a baseline agreement that one per cent of the returns from the well head go back to the landholder. They were additional comments signed off by the National Party. This gives a clear understanding. That would mean in some areas, where it is not prime agricultural land and it is not going to destroy aquifers or be next to the quiet enjoyment of someone's house, a person gets a chance for a fair return.

The best well in Queensland, in Roma, returns $1 million a day. A one per cent return per year from that well would be around $3.3 million. That would be a great return for that landholder. That would be a great return for the town of Roma—or for Wallumbilla, Dulacca or Injune. It would give people the capacity to get a real return back into their local community. The person most likely to spend that money would of course be the landholder on whose property the well is. A very average well returns around $30,000 to $40,000 per day, so you are looking at in excess of $100,000 a year per well.

These are the sorts of things that would deal with so many arguments. What are they getting at the moment? We found one person who got a slab of beer. One person got $240 a year. Some people thought they were really getting ahead when they were getting $1,500 a year. It was only the Senate inquiry that brought transparency and gave a clear understanding of just how much was involved and how people should be getting a fairer return.

In the state of Texas in the United States of America they get 25 per cent of the gross at the well head. Then the federal government comes and taxes the landholder and then the state government comes and taxes the landholder. Do they have any problems with access agreements? Surprisingly, no. They have no problems with access agreements whatsoever. In fact, if you find a shoe box you will find an oil well or something sitting on top of it, because people are making quite a substantial return out of it. I think once this logic is taken on board, not by the federal government but by state governments and the mining companies, then a lot of these problems that have been dealt with here will be ironed out.

However, I do not think changing over constitutional law at a federal level is going to work. I do not quite know how that one is going to work today. What we have here, as always with the Greens—because I do not think this has not been supported in the lower house by any in the Labor Party or by the Independents—is a classic case of a form of a wedge. They do it for the purposes of saying, 'We'll work on the presumption that nobody actually knows what this is about.' At first blush they will say, 'This is just what we are looking for.' But the reality is that not only would it be constitutionally unviable; it just completely belies the historical facts that sit behind this thing, which is that you are looking for rights that are held by the states. You are trying to put conditions on them at a federal level and that is just not going to work.