I must admit to writing and singing one of these songs myself! I have a mate, a farmer on the Blackall Plains, near Quirindi, NSW, who has been a longtime battler against mining companies, especially BHP, and State Governments determined to mine on his family property. It just didn’t seem right. On a visit in 2008 I must have been in a whimsical mood and penned a parody on the old song from the musical ‘Oklahoma’ – ‘The Farmer and the Cowman Should Be Friends’. I changed it to ‘The Miner and the Farmer Should Be Friends’. It was published on the Union Songs website as a matter of record.

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Warren Fahey is a Sydney-based Cultural Historian, author and performer. His Australian Folklore Unit site offers resources on Australian history, music and folklore.