Chair Todd Woodard said the new laws showed mining companies were being given more power at the expense of farmers.\u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Todd Woodard farms at Wrattonbully, between Penola and Naracoorte. (ABC South East SA: Eugene Boisvert)<\/p>\n
“For the sake of 5 minutes’ worth of mining, those minerals look like they’ll go straight overseas to get processed. The royalties will go straight to the capital cities, we will never see them back in the region,” he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“With existing industries already in place, they’re paying tax and contributing to local communities.”\u00a0<\/p>\n
Mr Woodard said allowing mining companies to extend their leases would increase uncertainty for landholders subject to mining proposals.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“Everyone else in agriculture and other businesses are subject to commodity price changes,” he said.<\/p>\n
“This gives the proponents a really unfair advantage to just renew and renew until prices are ready to go.”\u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Rare Earth minerals have been found in land around the Wrattonbully area in SA’s South East. (Supplied: Australian Rare Earths)<\/p>\n
Encouraging investment<\/p>\n
SA Mining Minister Tom Koutsantonis said 18-year leases were generally long enough for companies to complete mining activities.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But sometimes, delays were out of their control and extensions were necessary, he added.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“There were a number of exploration tenements coming to the end of their life, where there’s one or two where you could argue the proponents were being treated harshly,” he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Tom Koutsantonis says the Mining Act was changed to encourage investment in the state. (ABC News: Che Chorley)<\/p>\n
“Through no fault of their own, they haven’t been able to get access to land because they’ve got a dispute with native title holders or environmental court action against them.”<\/p>\n
The changes were passed with the support of both the Labor government and the Liberal opposition.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Mr Koutsantonis said both parties wanted to ensure investment in the state.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“It’s also giving us the discretion to say, ‘No, that’s enough, you’ve had 18 years, time to move on,'” he said.’Long runway’ needed for investment<\/p>\n
In its latest Annual Survey of Mining Companies, conservative Canadian think tank the Fraser Institute ranked South Australia as number 30 out of the 82 jurisdictions surveyed.<\/p>\n
Released at the end of 2024, the international survey rates regions based on their attractiveness for mining investment.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In 2024 South Australia was 30, down from number 20 in 2021. Other key mining states including Western Australia and Queensland also slid in their rating.<\/p>\n
Association of Mining and Exploration Companies chief executive Warren Pearce said South Australia’s 18-year limit made the state relatively unattractive for mining company investment.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Warren Pearce says the mining industry welcomes the changes.\u00a0 (ABC News)<\/p>\n
“When it comes to mining development, the reality is it’s quite a long and detailed process to work your way through your feasibility studies and the approvals process to actually build your project,” Mr Pearce said.<\/p>\n
“You need a long enough runway to make sure the investment you’re putting in can be realised.”Farmers’ concerns ‘ignored’<\/p>\n
Independent Narungga MP Fraser Ellis spoke against last week’s changes in parliament.\u00a0<\/p>\n
While a Liberal MP, \u00a0he crossed the floor in 2018 to oppose mining law changes put forward by the then-Liberal government.\u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Fraser Ellis (back row, left) crossed the floor to vote against his own party on mining changes in 2018. (Supplied: SA Labor)<\/p>\n
Mr Ellis said the state government was ignoring farmer feedback from a 2021 Select Committee into mining land access in moving ahead with last week’s changes. \u00a0<\/p>\n
He said an independent ombudsman should be in place to oversee mining compliance on farmland, a role currently held by the Department for Energy and Mining.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“Splitting that role would at least solve the perception landholders have that their complaints aren’t being heard by the people also charged with promoting mining in the state,” he said.<\/p>\n
Mr Koutsantonis pushed back against the idea of an independent regulator, saying the responsibility should fall on elected officials.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"South Australian farmers are worried new laws will place mining rights over their own, but mining companies say…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":295465,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[169483,64,63,169478,169487,112392,169479,169475,44,169481,169482,169476,101075,1124,169477,169480,169485,169486,169484],"class_list":["post-295464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-annual-survey-of-mining-companies","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-farmers-mining-rights","tag-farmers-vs-mining-act","tag-fraser-institute","tag-limestone-coast-sustainable-futures-association","tag-mining-laws","tag-news","tag-rare-earths-mining-sa","tag-sa-energy-and-mining-minister","tag-sa-mining-investment","tag-sa-parliament","tag-south-australia","tag-south-australia-mining-investment","tag-south-australias-mining-act","tag-what-does-the-mining-act-mean","tag-what-will-the-sa-mining-act-mean-for-farmers","tag-wrattonbully"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=295464"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295464\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/295465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=295464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=295464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=295464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}