"In general mineral rights in Australia are reserved to the Crown"

https://www.austrade.gov.au/land-tenure/Land-tenure/mining-a...

Which seems as complex as you might expect for something based on similar UK laws:

http://www.bgs.ac.uk/mineralsUK/planning/legislation/mineral...

NB I've thought for a while that land 'ownership' is a slightly odd concept - not helped by being in Scotland where land ownership has had over a thousand years to get in a nice mess.

Would have a link or something to look up about Scotland's land rights being a mess? I realize I'm veering a little off topic here, but I'd be curious to learn more. I'd never heard that before

I can recommend this book if you are are really interested:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/14614429-the-poor-had-no...

This Guardian article gives you a flavour of some of the issues:

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/aug/10/scotland-lan...

The land was seized at gunpoint within the past couple of centuries; does that affect your answer?

That's been all of world history for 1300 years, what difference does it make?

Are you cool with it happening now? Then maybe it's not right, and maybe it wasn't right before.

"right" doesn't enter into it. The people with guns have always made the rules and still do.

What do you propose with regards to that? The concept of historical reparation is in general quite complex, do you think it would be possible here?

The existing solution of the state exploiting mineral rights to non-Aboriginal land and [at least theoretically] distributing their proceeds across the entire population, including those whose access to the land was taken, is probably less suboptimal than regarding mineral rights as 'belonging' to the person who most recently acquired the land title.

effectively, yes, mineral rights are nationalised.

when you buy property in Australia, that does not include the mineral rights on that property, which are a whole separate thing. Farmers have got rich selling access to mine sites, but only the government can sell the mining rights (for the first sale anyway).

If the person who owns it is the government, then it belongs to the public.

A government of the people by the people. Such a wonderful ideal, one I wish more strived towards.

That's certainly what the government wants you to believe :)

Only in an idealized democracy - and democracies don't work that way.

Democracies work any way those who participate in them want them to.

I think you were emphasizing the participation part? And I agree, but curious to where do you draw the line on what constitutes participation?

Some argue simply paying taxes. Others say it is a list of things perhaps, called "civic duties". Finally, some more extreme believe you have to do it all: attend the town halls, keep up with the times, understand the various debate points, otherwise you are somehow disqualified from playing. (A side note, it has become impossible to keep up with all the ways government affects your life, and this is one of the exact reasons the founders were for limited government. They argued as the responsibilities and roles of government increase, it becomes impossible for the "commoner" to keep up and stay engaged, thus becoming a form of tyranny in of it's own.)

I think it's definitely a gray area, but the more participation, obviously, the better, while still somehow maintaining the ability to serve those who participate little just as equally. Otherwise you become a government of some people, not of all people.

See, this is the lame kind of pat answer that makes others have to point out that you are being idealistic.

The horror /s

It’s more healthy than the alternative.

I generally agree with libertarians in that people should not be overly taxed when they create a house or plant a crop. But in this case, the person who owns the land did not create the natural resources. So no, they should not be entitled to it. Also the current public is not entitled to it either. Future generations need to be considered as well.

There are actually far more practical reasons for public management of oil and gas resources. The reservoirs are huge and span more than a single owners private property. In order to harvest efficiently you may require coordination or non local maxima decisions to improve overall production. Otherwise you'll leave the majority of the resources in the ground with no way to get them out

Private entities manage to coordinate across the globe to build hugely complex products, from extraction of resources to manufacturing, assembling, distribution and retailing, and you think reaching an agreement between a few land owners is too much for it?