Mr Windsor reportedly told the media yesterday that he intended to introduce a private member’s bill into parliament during the August sitting to push the federal government to declare certain areas – including the blacksoil in the Liverpool Plains of his New England electorate – off-limits to the controversial developments.

“There’s a collision point coming between the farm sector and the mining sector on these sensitive lands,” Mr Windsor said.

Mr Windsor was reported as saying his biggest worries over projects including the Shuenhua Watermark Coal project arose from their potential impacts on the surface water and groundwater beyond the mine and exploration sites.

“I think there’s more concern about the impact of the activity on the floodplain than the impact of a Chinaman on it,” he said.

As a trade-off for his support in helping Ms Gillard to power in last year’s federal election, Mr Windsor secured four pages of promises, including one to set up a parliamentary committee inquiry to examine the issues mining and gas extraction had on sensitive farmland such as the Liverpool Plains and the Darling Downs.

At the time he said “it may only be two sentences, but it’s something I’m deadly serious about”.

It is understood Mr Windsor will now push than the original agreement, calling for the commonwealth to intervene this year in state-based approval processes to ensure mining and coal-seam gas projects do not threaten water resources on a number of productive floodplains.

Studies from the Australian Bureau of Statistics and the Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation have now been commissioned to find out just how much farmland is owned by foreigners.

Yesterday the Greens claimed to have obtained research indicating as little as 17 per cent of Australia’s mining industry was Australian-owned.