Here's something to keep in mind the next time you hear a mining magnate or chief executive complaining about an outrageous assault on their industry. Those minerals they're mining - all that gold, iron ore, coal and uranium - it's yours. You own it.

By virtue of your incredibly good fortune to have been born on, or migrated to, this particular rocky outcrop in the southern seas, you posses an equal claim to all the rich resources lying beneath. ''Australians all let us rejoice … our land abounds in nature's gifts of beauty rich and rare.''

"Our mining magnates got rich because state governments sold rights to extract Australia's minerals and didn't, as it turns out, charge enough". Credit:Erin Jonasson

It was not always so clear cut. But around the turn of the 20th century, Australian state governments moved to take ownership of all the minerals under the earth, on behalf of all Australians. The old property law of ''for whoever owns the soil, it is theirs all the way up to heaven and down to hell'' no longer applied.

Today, mining companies don't own the minerals they extract. Subject to some state-based variations and historical quirks, all the minerals beneath the ground in Australia now belong to ''the Crown'' - usually interpreted as state governments - and so, in turn, all Australians.