Sarah Herrmann, Yorke Peninsula Country Times

“If you walk into State Parliament, in the House of Representatives, on the floor — embedded in the carpet — is wheat sheaves and grapes,” Pine Point farmer Brenton Davey says.

“That was put there as recognition of what the primary producers have done for this state. And they’re walking all over us — on the carpet.”

Mr Davey’s remarks came after both major parties last week united to vote down a bill aimed at strengthening protections for landowners against mining companies.

The Davey property, which has been in the family since the late 1800s, is “straight through the fence” from Rex Minerals’ Hillside mine, where copper and gold were first found in 2008.

“(The prospect of the mine has) affected not just the farm but the whole family, with the uncertainty, the emotional side of it,” Mr Davey said.

“It’s the thing we have spoken about every day, and we shouldn’t have to do that.

“It’s changed our lives forever.”

Mr Davey said the mine would make his farm untenable in time.

“For a start, it’ll be the dust, possible water incursions because they’re building the mine in water courses, and also the waste rock dumps will shadow the land.

“It’ll change the topography, rainfall, wind and sun,” he said.

“We’ll battle on as long as we can.”

The farmer said the only balance he could see between agriculture and mining was to mine in non-food-producing areas, such as Olympic Dam where he said BHP had so much copper “they don’t know what to do with it all”.

“We are getting ingression by mining companies, windfarms, solar farms, housing; everything is ingressing on farming land,” he said.

“We don’t want compensation, because that’s not going to solve the root of the problem. We want food security.”

A Rex Minerals spokesperson said mining and agriculture operated side by side around the country and there was no need for the community to choose between one or the other.

“Hillside’s operational impact has been carefully reviewed via a detailed, science-based assessment by South Australian regulators who approved the project five years ago,” they said.

“Rex Minerals will continue to work closely with the local community to maximise the significant benefits of the Hillside project.”

The state government declared copper a critical mineral, required for decarbonisation, electrification and new technologies, in 2023.

Independent left hanging

Narungga MP Fraser Ellis’s Private Member’s Bill about land access for mining was voted down in State Parliament last Wednesday, April 2, receiving only five votes of support from independent politicians.

The bill was an attempt to legislate recommendations from a multi-partisan Select Committee held in 2021 in response to community concerns about mining companies’ access to farming land.

The recommendations included the establishment of a mining land commissioner, an increase in legal assistance support and a code of conduct for exploring companies.

The bill was tabled in November 2022, and Mr Ellis said time had been running out to debate it, being less than a year away from the 2026 state election.

“It’s rather topical at the moment so I was eager to ensure I at least had a crack at getting it through,” he said.

“I’d been holding out hope we might find some support in the parliament, more than the other four votes I got.”

Mr Ellis said he would continue to fight for landowners and make it an election issue.

“I think it’s a shame that any mining proposal anywhere will inevitably achieve commencement no matter the protestations of the people who own the land,” he said.

“I accept that the state owns the minerals and it’s the state’s right to benefit from them, but I don’t necessarily accept that ownership should mean automatic access.

“Queensland has a system called the Regional Planning Interests Act, which maps out the entire state and increases the height of the hurdles over which a mining company has to jump on strategic cropping land, and I think something like that is a piece of work well worth doing in South Australia.”

Timeline

• November 2008: Rex Minerals confirmed its discovery of high-grade copper mineralisation at the Hillside project.
• August 2013: As Rex got closer to applying for a mining lease, the company was involved in two court cases with landowners whose properties bordered Hillside and sought to stop Rex from entering their land.
• September 2013: Rex applied for a mining lease at Hillside. The public was given six weeks to comment. The YP Land Owners’ Group, comprising about 150 landowners, organised a petition for State Parliament as well as a combined submission to the SA Government against the mine.
• September 2014: Rex Minerals officially accepted a mining lease approval from the State Government to build the mine at Hillside.
• August 2017: Community consultation sessions were held about the mine.
• February 2018: Rex submitted its Program for Environment Protection and Rehabilitation.
• November 2018: Then-Liberal Narungga MP Fraser Ellis, and other fellow Liberals, crossed the floor to postpone debate on amendments to the mining act, which they saw as not going far enough to protect landowners. The State Government argued the bill would bring regulations up to date and drive investment in the sector.
• July 2019: The mining act amendments passed.
• July 2020: The State Government approved Rex’s Program for Environment Protection and Rehabilitation.
• March 2021: The State Government established a Select Committee on Land Access to investigate the laws governing mineral exploration and mining on private land. The final report was released in November 2021. 
• November 2022: Fraser Ellis tabled a Private Member’s Bill, which attempted to legislate the Select Committee’s recommendations.
• December 2022: Onsite construction of the Hillside mine began.
• July 2024: Rex was set to begin working on a diversion of Pine Point Road and its intersection with St Vincent Highway to make way for the mine.
• April 2025: Mr Ellis’s bill was voted down 36-5.

This article appeared in Yorke Peninsula Country Times, 8 April 2025.