John Singleton with Bob HowardRip Van Australia (Stanmore: Cassell Australia, 1977), pp. 161-63, under the heading “Mining and Minerals”.

If you weighed 127 kilograms (twenty stone), were muscle bound and as strong as an ox, it would make more sense to train as a weight-lifter than a ballet dancer. If you live high in the Alps in Switzerland, it would make more sense to raise goats than Arab loans. In other words, common sense tells us that the chances of success are high if you concentrate on the things you are naturally good at.

In economics this is called the efficient allocation of resources. In psychology it is called maximising one’s potential. It all means the same: do what you’re good at. If we look at Australia, it should be obvious that, because of some natural objective facts, we have some advantages in some areas of economic endeavour, and disadvantages in others.

We have a large, rich country, with a small population. We have huge mineral deposits, and extensive grazing and farming land. We don’t have much in the way of accumulated capital with which to fund large enterprises, or the population for either mass domestic markets or labour intensive industries. It is obvious, therefore, that we should be concentrating on mining, grazing and farming instead of manufacturing industries.

The governments, Federal and State, should get out of the way and allow our mineral resources to be developed. Foreign investment would only be necessary in the initial stages (but should never be prohibited) and conservation, as previously discussed, automatically occurs on a totally free market. If the government also eliminated tariffs, and dramatically cuts its spending, and hence inflation and taxes, both the mining and primary industries would boom. Without the burden of taxes and inflation, our manufacturing industries would not need the heavy tariff protection, and could turn their attention primarily to supplying the needs of the developing mining and primary industries, instead of producing products that can be purchased more cheaply overseas.

Our Governments should also move to recognise property rights. All their claims to the contrary notwithstanding, no government in this country, either Federal or State, recognises them. What property we have, we have by permission, not by right. Until this right is recognised, miners and prospectors will have no real security, and hence diminished incentive to find and develop minerals.

Lang Hancock sat on his own iron ore discoveries until 1965 because there was no incentive for him to announce them — and any other person would have done the same. No one throws millions of dollars away out of loyalty to some vague “national interest”. This is especially so when you know that you announce a find, it will be (1) confiscated, and (2) developed by the same business geniuses that run the post office.

When property rights are respected, land ownership, unless otherwise specified in the purchase contract (for example, covenants in the contract can prohibit mining, development, high-rise buildings, etc.), gives the owner absolute right to control or dispose of that property as he sees fit, provided only that by doing so he does not violate the rights of anyone else. Thus, he may not pollute or damage neighbouring property without their owners’ consent, for example. Only the owner of such a property can decide whether or not the property should be prospected or mined.

But, present “right of access” laws, laws which force property “owners” to allow prospecting and mining on their property irrespective of their wishes, violate the property rights of private land holders and, therefore, should be abolished. Of course, much of the confusion, once again, is caused by the fact that large areas of land are not privately owned. Thus, these lands become the subject of the graft-and-corruption, or numbers, game.

In the case of private property, arrangements for prospecting and/or mining should be a matter to be settled on a voluntary basis between the parties involved, at whatever terms they agree upon. But the only way that any of them — prospectors, miners, investors or land owners — can have real security is if the government recognises and protects the individual rights of them all.

If a person prefers his property unspoiled, then it is his right to leave his mineral deposits undisturbed. They do not belong to all of us any more than this year’s wheat crop does. They are his to do with as he pleases.

Obviously, once again, such changes in the system will create problems. But, as in other instances, these problems will be less numerous and more clear cut than those that we have now. By returning to the rule of principles, we get away from the rule of men — the graft, corruption and numbers game. Figuring out how to turn public property into private property may cause some problems, in more densely populated areas. But an immediate start should at least be made in areas such as the Pilbara. The Government of Western Australia should simply auction the land off to the highest bidder and convert current leasehold properties to freehold.

At a time when the Australian economy is in a slump, and unemployment is at record levels, it is absurd that we should be sitting on all our untapped wealth. Particularly when two out of three of all people who share this world with us live closer to our natural resources in Western Australia, the Northern Territory and Queensland than 70 per cent of Australians do in N.S.W. and Victoria. And of those two in three over one billion will die this year.

While we sit around discussing reports we are currently mass manslaughtering, if not murdering, on a scale that makes Hitler and Mao look like Tom and Jerry by comparison. The money, the willingness and the expertise are available to develop Australia. The only obstacle in the way is the State. Only we can remove the obstacle.