Prime minister Malcolm Turnbull and treasurer Scott Morrison made the right decision to intervene and put a stop to the foreign purchase of the Kidman station in central Australia.
But the PM and federal agriculture minister Barnaby Joyce will be making the wrong decision if they don't take whatever action they need to, to put a stop to the Shenhua coal mine on the Liverpool Plains in NSW, and further to that, make all of Australia's prime agricultural land complete no go zones for any form of industrialization.
It's called federal intervention in the national interest seeing that the state governments, particularly in Queensland and NSW, seem pigheadedly determined to allow so much precious cropland to be at the mercy of ruthless mining and gas companies.
Australia really isn't blessed with an over-abundance of arable cropland, in the years to come domestic food security may well be in some degree of peril as it already stands. The last thing the Turnbull government can afford to do is allow any more of it to be seized upon by mining and gas companies.
The average Australian, not mining companies, not gas companies, not foreign governments, companies and entrepreneurs, need every little bit of what sustainable and productive cropland remains in Australia.
They need it so Australian farmers can keep growing staple crops to feed them, their children and grandchildren for generations to come.
Turnbull and Joyce have to now draw a line in the sand and pursue the enactment of federal legislation to stop Australian cropland and pastoral land ever being majority owned by any foreigner or foreign entity, and separate to that, force all the state governments to end the mining and gas company invasion of prime agricultural land - full stop.
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