Art. VI of the Australia-U.S. Convention defined real property to include “rights to exploit or to explore for natural resources.” In connection with an analysis that treated mining leases as real property for purposes of Art. VI, Pagone J noted (at para. 98):
In TEC Desert Pty Ltd v Commissioner of State Revenue (WA) (2010) 241 CLR 576 the High Court in a joint judgment observed that the position at common law was that a right to mine land gave no interest in the land, saying at 587, [29]:
This treatment of mining tenements in the Australian statutory system had been foreshadowed by the law in England. The general position under the common law in England with respect to the grant by a freeholder of a licence to work a mine was described by Page Wood V-C in London and North-Western Railway Co v Ackroyd as follows:
“[A] licence to work a mine is only a licence to get the minerals, and when you have got them, you have done all you have a right to do, and you have no interest in the land.”