YPCT Letter to the editor from Max Wilksch

Mining on prime agricultural land

COMMEND the Country Times on the accurate coverage of the meeting of YP grain growers at Arthurton on July 16.

That farmers within such a viable and fertile region as Yorke Peninsula are threatened by uninvited exploration and mining, whilst receiving no support from their Member of Parliament, is an indictment of the politics of party group thinking.

Within South Australia, there are 98.4 million hectares of land, of which four million are used for grains production. There are no minerals beneath that cropping land which are not available in copious quantities within the other 94 million hectares. How the current major political parties can countenance the destruction of a heritage of 140 years of sustainable food production, as well as the pain and duress of the farming families caught up in these mining tenements, for some short-term gain and the myth of job creation cannot be understood by reason or logic.

Unfortunately, YP, like most of the rest of rural SA, is trapped by the impediment of being a safe Liberal seat, both state and federally. It is perhaps time some well known independent person of integrity stood up and represented the actual wishes of the people of YP. Up until now, only the Greens and Family First have been mature enough to argue against the invasive mining of the most productive grain producing land within this state.

Max Wilksch Yeelanna