What is a surprise is the speed at which protests by farmers in Queensland and New South Wales over coal and CSG exploration has become a national cause, uniting once intractable opponents.

Points are undoubtedly being scored by the politicians as they play their games, with the far left Green Party embarrassing far right conservatives over the question of farmers v miners when it comes to land use.

In the background to this circus are three serious messages that the coal and CSG industries ignore at their peril. They are:

• Politics will favour farmers because there are more votes in the farming community than the capital intensive mining industry.
• The farm (and regional city) vote will outweigh the export income argument of the mining sector, and
• Australians, even city dwellers who rarely visit the bush, have a soft spot and perhaps even historic ties to the man on the land.

That’s why when the coal and CSG debate hit the fan in Canberra last week, and politicians from all sides lined up with farmers and home-owners in regional cities, the coal industry should have recognised that it was receiving the equivalent of a warning shot across its bows.

Defenders of coal, such as the Queensland Resources Council, attempted to criticise action by that state’s government in whacking additional limits on coal exploration, especially near regional centres, and announcing a review of its policy on so-called strategic cropping land.

In NSW there was an outcry from the coal industry over the imposition of fresh restriction on the issue of mining leases and the need to prepare agricultural impact statements.

Those state developments, which came from the political left (Queensland) and the political right (NSW) spilled over into the national political debate with a series of noteworthy events that included:

• Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott, siding with the farmers and criticising coal companies and CSG developers – for blatantly political purposes.
• Greens leader, Bob Brown, attempting to push Abbott further down the environmental path – for blatantly political purposes.
• Would-be opposition leader, Malcolm Turnbull, attempted to boost his environmental credentials by calling for a great use of scientific research – for blatantly political purposes.
• Australian government ministers were apparently struck dumb by the dilemma of not being seen to encourage coal (for blatantly political purposes given the imminent arrival of carbon tax legislation), but keen to encourage CSG.

All this was happening against a background of a slowing economy, international financial market turmoil and the shock of rising unemployment as a promised economic boom fizzles away.

To say this is a spectacular cocktail of trouble is an understatement, but it is also true to say that leaders of the coal industry should be taking very seriously what has been happening on the left and right of Australian politics.

Clear signals are being sent to coal by all sides of the political divide that a smarter way ahead must be devised.

Simply criticising the governments of Queensland and NSW for not understanding how coal exploration works, and how mining eventually gives way to land rehabilitation will not win the debate.

What needs to happen is for coal leaders to recognise that they have lost the political debate before it really gets underway, come up with a significant peace offering, and claim a place at the table before they are branded the enemy and left out of the process which will decide the future of coal and CSG.

The point reached in Australia’s “land use” debate has reached a point where it will do no good to fight what the Americans call City Hall. A much more positive outcome can be achieved by:

• Acknowledging problems caused by rogue operators.
• Pointing out the importance of coal and CSG to Australia’s economic future.
• Helping write a code of best practice with enforceable rules.
• Avoid at all costs damaging the water stored in the Great Artesian Basin, a geological formation which has near-religious significance in Australia.
• Bringing other land users into the process instead of alienating them.
• Spending a large amount of money on outright land acquisition.

Above all, the coal industry must stop fighting farmers because they hold the political whip hand as shown in the way all sides of politics have sided with them over the past few weeks.

Those suggestions might sound like advising coal leaders to eat humble pie, but that’s because it is precisely what The Hog is saying.

After a few mouthfuls, coal leaders they might even find it doesn’t taste too bad and at least the coal industry can get on with business and stop fighting political battles it is so obviously doomed to lose.