Presentation by Richard Golden at the 2013 10th Anniversary Property Rights Australia conference.
Resource developments on our land-
Activities Number of agreements
1. 3 gas tenements, on each of two landholdings 6
2. 1 longwall EPC (Exploration Permit for Coal) on each of two landholdings 2
3. 1 x 275,000 volt lattice tower power transmission line on one of the holdings 1
9
So, by the time we are finished, we will have had to negotiate 9 agreements with four different companies about 3 different activities!
Perhaps should get my potentially contentious opinions out in the open first up-
1. Australia is a free enterprise country, and if our forebears came and imposed a higher and better use on the previous occupiers, then I think it is a bit hypocritical for us to say that a legitimate activity such as resource development shouldn’t be able to operate in our space.
2. I support the freedom of landowners to choose to sell to resource companies and the freedom of gas companies to buy landholdings in a voluntary sale.
The issue for me in both instances is the manner and the process. The mental and emotional strain on landholders, our families and our communities which lets us find out from experience how much better the internet works from about 2.30am to daylight.
· Global gas corporations are ruthless businesses, not charitable institutions. They operate in Queensland with laws which already favour their interests, even without the disparity in skill, experience and financial capacity. Like the dingo waiting patiently in the shade beside the waterhole, knowing that the roo he chased in there must eventually come out, companies which choose to do so are in a position to wait patiently while landholders financially drown in legal and expert costs, or volunteer to come out to be slaughtered.
·
Having said that, it is important to also say, gas
companies are not all the same as each other. Nor is any gas company all good,
nor any all bad. Like gems, there are many facets to a gas company. But in the
end, it is the company culture that rules.
·
Be cautious about either accepting or rejecting
the landholders who play front-men for gas companies in media blitzes. We don’t
know, and they aren’t allowed to say, what tipped the scales for them. No one
knows what those landholders’ vision or life objectives were or are, and nobody
can know what their compensation agreements entailed. And nobody can judge
whether the one gas company they are promoting represents the industry standard.
·
Two of the most abused words in the resources
and political language are “certainty” and “information”. With great respect to MPs and
Gasfield commissioners the last thing I need is “more” information without
first getting the specific information I have already requested and which has
been withheld for the last 6 months. So the riders to the word “information”
are the words “accurate” and “relevant”. Without both of those adjectives, more
information is worse than useless. Some gas companies are prepared to drown
landholders in useless and possibly inaccurate information and use that to
obscure the facts. And “certainty”, well the only certainty the “good faith”
negotiation process has provided to us is that companies are in a position to
use the laws to choke us into submission while smiling and talking about the
good faith, and that one is in the process of doing so. That type of certainty
is 100% negative.
·
Remember that even though the time-honoured
caution caveat emptor is effectively
dead for the general public, it remains essential for us as businesses fighting
for our very right to remain in stewardship of our landscapes and in control of
at least a part of our destiny. SO....don’t even draw breath without legal
representation and advice and don’t take anything or anyone at face value.
·
And so to the subject of professional costs
which the law appears to say must be paid by the company - at least one company
feels free to choose not to pay landholders’ professional costs using the
rubbery adjectives “reasonable and necessary” to justify the refusal. Now,
notwithstanding the apparent ability to pay only what the company chooses to
pay, we have SKM, a consultancy with direct connections to the gas industry as
a supplier of professional services, providing “independent” advice to
government suggesting capping the costs which at least one company already feels
free to refuse to pay anyway. If this “capping” proposal were accepted by
government the effect will be to further suffocate the landholders who have
small areas and for whom the most generous of financial settlements can never
cover the shortfall between SKM’s ridiculous cap recommendation and the real
cost of dealing with a gas company which, for example, flatly refuses to supply
the information needed by a landholder to inform their compensation
discussions.
·
The “mudguard” syndrome.
The shiny side-
Internationally renowned, world’s best practice gasfield
operator and gas producer, with warmth, integrity and generosity, building a
minimal impact gasfield in a welcoming receiving environment, where there is
little if any real conflict between the gasfield and the existing land use.
Deeply committed to strong and respectful relationships with landholders, and
good-faith negotiations to obtain mutually beneficial agreements. Determined to
achieve real co-existence.
This is the sort of soft sell that gets some local, state
and federal politicians wetting themselves with excitement and pleasure at the
win-win for everyone. The sort of stuff that wins awards for advertising
companies while helping the voting public to rest easy at night.
And then the smelly,
dirty underside of the gas company mudguard-
Building and operating a gasfield in our business premises
and our homes, for an uncertain number of decades into the future.
Breaches such as trespass, weed certificates for the wrong
vehicle, no certificate at all, certs out of date, certified vehicles contaminated
with vegetative matter and soil, unauthorised entry, letting cattle out,
letting cattle in, letting cattle between paddocks, cutting stock water
supplies, cattle falling into bell-holes, mixing of soil horizons in gathering
construction, building a gathering system in a property where they have not
even got a CCA, and then when they are sprung in the act, leaving plastic tape
fluttering on pegs in that paddock where stud bulls live so the bulls can eat it
and die, creating the environment for undesirable grasses to dominate
landscapes, and on and on and on.
And let’s not even start on the water matter.
So that is barely a taste of what living and working in
someone else’s gasfield is like, and however affronted you feel, multiply that
by 10 to start to gain the real picture. Even if your or your neighbour’s
experience has been positive, there is nothing to show that anyone else’s will
be. In conclusion-
·
Remember Ikey and never trust anybody
·
Remember that in the end the company culture
rules
·
Don’t even shake hands without legal advice and
representation, and count your fingers after
·
Scream about the suggestion to introduce any
form of capping on recoverable professional costs
·
Report every breach however small
·
Concede nothing without a fight
·
Remember the mudguard syndrome
·
And mourn the loss of trust, and privacy, and
the families and homes we have struggled to make and protect
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