Seat at the Table
How a $4 membership puts your voice inside the boardroom of an Australian resource company.
You do not need millions to influence a mining company.
You need to be a Member.
This guide backs up the CEO Power Cheat Sheet. Five sections. Five minutes to read. Based on real laws in Australia right now.
1. The problem no one is talking about
You do not own the minerals. The Crown does.
76% of Australia’s biggest gold mines are foreign-owned. 56% of LNG exports leave royalty-free. The holes stay here. The value does not.
Gold: Dr Sandra Close, Surbiton Associates, reported by Mining Weekly, September 2025. FY 2024/25 figures.
Gas: The Australia Institute, Submission to Senate Inquiry, April 2026.
For 450 years, since the Case of Mines in 1568, the law has said the Crown owns everything beneath the soil. Every Australian state and territory has written that rule into statute. The people living above the resource get no automatic share, no automatic say, no seat.
Case of Mines (1568) 1 Plowd 310; 75 ER 472 (English Court of Exchequer). Inherited via colonial statutes and the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act 1901 (Imp).
That is not an accident. It is the legal architecture of the country.
Read the full legal breakdown ›
2. How COGS changes the equation
COGS is a member-owned community trust. It holds shares in the ASX-listed companies that hold the mining licences. Gold miners. Gas producers. Resource companies extracting from Australian ground.
When you join COGS, you become a Member. Your membership holds a unit in the trust that owns the shares. That unit gives you one vote inside COGS, equal to every other Member, no matter how much money anyone has.
And the value does not sit only in the shares. The minerals beneath Australian soil carry real measurable value before a single hole is dug. We hold the shares. We do not extract the resource. The community recognises the value of what is in the ground without needing it to come out.
The trust already holds a bloc of shares in an ASX-listed resource company on Bundjalung Country. More acquisitions are underway. The shares are real. The votes are real. The Members own the trust.
3. How your vote actually reaches the board
Here is how it works in practice:
- COGS holds a bloc of shares in a company. A gold miner, say. Or a gas producer.
- Before that company’s Annual General Meeting, every COGS Member is polled on the resolutions.
- The Trustee then votes the entire bloc according to the majority result of the Member poll.
- At the AGM, the board sees one shareholder with thousands of Members behind it. Asking questions. Voting on executive pay. Voting on project approvals. On the record.
You do not need to attend the AGM. You do not need to be a shareholder yourself. You just need to be a COGS Member, and your vote is cast as part of the bloc.
One person on the share register is easy to dismiss. A coordinated bloc is a material risk the company must manage. That changes the conversation.
4. Why this is legal, enforceable, and permanent
The Corporations Act 2001 gives every registered shareholder the right to attend, speak, and vote at general meetings. COGS exercises those rights on behalf of its Members through a properly structured trustee arrangement.
This is not a petition. It is not a protest. It is a legally enforceable voice inside the company.
The trust structure also embeds a First Nations Advisory Council. Traditional Custodians, whose families have lived on this Country for generations, hold binding authority inside the Foundation governance structure. Their consent is required before major decisions. It is written into the governing documents and it cannot be overridden.
When a company on Bundjalung Country faces a shareholder body that includes Traditional Custodians with legal governance authority, the conversation is different. The company cannot claim community support if the community, united and organised, says otherwise.
5. Alone vs together
You could buy one share on the ASX, attend an AGM, and ask a question. The board will listen politely. Then they will go back to business.
One person with one share is a curiosity.
Five thousand Members voting as one coordinated bloc is a material risk the company must disclose to its investors. That is a voice that cannot be ignored.
COGS does not make you a shareholder. It makes you part of a shareholder. And that, under Australian law, is where the power actually sits.
One bloc of shares. Five thousand Members.
Traditional Custodians at the centre.
The minerals stay in the ground until the community says otherwise.
That is a seat at the table no company can ignore.