NEVER PEG A SMALL MINERS CLAIM IN QUEENSLAND

[Lefty]

Those of you who have been here a while will already know of the incredible cautionary tale of me trying to peg a small miners claim on the Central Queensland gemfields. Of jumping through endless legal hoops and being relieved of thousands of dollars while still having nothing to show for it as I approach the three-year mark since applying for a prospectors permit.

Well here comes the next - and possibly final - sickening chapter in this sorry saga. I received a phone call yesterday from the Emerald office of the DMNR with whom my applications are lodged - "I have some bad news about your applications, we have rejected them on the grounds of environmental protection." At first I was too stunned to say anything, then my mental state caved in after three long years of being robbed and barstadized and I let fly with a tirade of abuse.

It's still unclear and the QSMA are looking into it for me but all I can think of is that during the extremely long wait, new environmental laws have been passed which have now been applied retrospectively to my applications.

When I applied for a prospectors permit over the area in question, I was officially approved and relieved of hundreds of dollars - I was not informed in writing or otherwise of the existence of special environmental no-go zones within a designated sapphire mining area.

With that approval, I then selected an area that met all the legal criteria at the time and applied for the right to peg the spot. My application to peg was officially approved and I was relieved of several thousand dollars (in total over time). At no stage was I ever informed in writing or otherwise that my application was on a special no-go zone.

Despite being submitted a full year before the expiry of the old native title agreement, it seems a year was not long enough for the DMNR to say yes or no - my claim was apparently at the approval stage when the existing native title agreement expired and a new one needed to be negotiated. This process has so far taken close to a year and a half and there is no time frame for any resolution. Until that time, no new claims can be granted regardless of what stage of progression they were at.

While I'm still not sure what has occurred, it seems special environmental protection zones called an ERE have been declared while I have been held in limbo. I can't find any information about them on the DMNR website, only passing mention in the sapphire miners journal. The fact that I was officially approved for the entire process barring the native title issue and never once informed that I was prospecting on and then pegging on land disqualified from such activities (inside a bloody designated mining and fossicking area!!!!) suggests to me that the ERE did not exist when I applied for and was approved for all the other stages and that I am the victim of retrospectively applied legislation. I would have thought such a thing to be constitutionally illegal.

There are several active mining claims and a machinery mining lease literally just metres away from my boundary - what special shrub or bug exists on my tiny patch that does not exist a few metres away?

More information will come to light but whatever you do, DO NOT PEG A SMALL MINERS CLAIM IN QUEENSLAND. It may well turn out to be the worst experience of your life.

 

[Heatho]

Sorry to hear Lefty, really sad to see the small guy get buried, literally, in paperwork and fee's for everything and then be rejected like that. If you were a big company and totally destroyed the land then it would have been no worries and they would have granted it.......

 

[Lefty]

I'm still walking in circles in stunned amazement Heatho - this should be outright illegal. In fact, it probably is but getting a resolution would probably take another three years.

Until I learn more, that's all I can think of - I was approved to prospect the area and approved to peg the area under the old law and then while the final rubber stamp was being delayed by a separate issue, a new law was passed which renders the old law null and void.

 

[LC76]

Is it worth taking legal action to either get approval or sue for projected and actual financial loss?

I feel for you.....it must be a real kick in the guts.

 

[Lefty]

Is it worth taking legal action to either get approval or sue for projected and actual financial loss?

I feel for you.....it must be a real kick in the guts.

It's just incredible that a government department is allowed to conduct itself in such a manner LC76. If I did to them what they have done to me, it would be called fraud and I would be hauled before the court.

Part of the money is legally recoverable. They are obliged to return the bond money payed on the applications. However, the money spent on the prospecting permit and the required advertising fee to allow notification for objections is gone. The cost of legal action would almost certainly well exceed the loss so it would make more financial sense to just suck it up.

Until they respond to me, I can only assume that they either knew or should have known that they were approving me to peg in an area that could not be pegged and so are guilty of gross negligence and dereliction of duty, or alternatively that new legislation has been passed in the interim that supplants the old legislation under which my applications were legal and above board - in which case they are applying legislation retrospectively which is both despicable and potentially illegal, although being a government department they will do such things with impunity anyway.

I'll just have to wait and see what happens.

One thing is for sure - I will never again walk into a mines department office in Queensland, unless it's to get my bond money back .

 

[Lefty]

I've rarely used an avatar anywhere but I currently have the right motivation.

Just like Lalor and the rebels, I'll probably get my arse kicked.

 

[nucopia]

Mate I feel for you and i hope some how you can find a satisfactory resolution.
i cant help but wonder how much this kind of rubbish goees on because of the greenies putting pressure on governments to stop all forms of mining in australia ..bloody watermelons the lot of them.

 

[Lefty]

Mate I feel for you and i hope some how you can find a satisfactory resolution.
i cant help but wonder how much this kind of rubbish goees on because of the greenies putting pressure on governments to stop all forms of mining in australia ..bloody watermelons the lot of them.

Cheers nucopia - yeah, I think there's a fair amount of that in the mix here. The idea that you can make small-scale mining illegal in an area purposely set aside for small-scale mining shows just how far things have deteriorated.

The area in question has been simultaneously mined and grazed for over a century now - if anything was there that is so fragile that it cannot tolerate disturbance, it's surely long gone now.

In fact, well-known Australian biologist Tim Lowe in his book The new nature says....

This book challenges conventional thinking about nature and conservation by showing that many native species are benefiting rather than suffering from human impacts, and exploring how these winners sometimes go on to cause environmental problems.

If it's a rare plant or something, why is it still there despite human and livestock intervention for over a hundred years? My bet would be that such a plant might only be in that spot because it actually benefits from what humans have done - lots of small-scale and hand mining dots the ground in the area, filling up with each rain and releasing it slowly into the ground, ensuring the area has a higher soil moisture for longer than what might otherwise be the case, while the grazing of cattle reduces the likelihood of fire (many plant are not tolerant of fire) while the cattle may eat the plants competitors but find the plant itself unpalatable.

If grazing and mining were banned, the plant might well disappear from that spot!

 

[Wolfy]

Sorry to hear your tale mate.

 

[blisters]

Sorry it's hapoened to you. It would be best to get legal advice on whether your approved position can be revoked like that.
Jon

 

[aussiefarmer]

Take your story to the department of fair trading , you should atleast recover anything that was paid once they relised its a no go area and continued to charge fees. Its more hoops to jump through but there may be some satisfaction in beating a unjust system.
Seek legal advice it may pay.

 

[shivan]

That is a damm shame Lefty .
It would have been one thing to have just been knocked back at the start. But to jump through all those hoops and fork out that kind of cash, just to be told no is irresponsible and unjust.

 

[Cherokee]

Feel for you mate.
Dont need that sheet!
Sheryl

 

[SneakyCuttlefish]

That's so bloody disgraceful. Send them an invoice for your time spent filing paperwork. Every month. With compounding interest.

 

[jimnyjerry]

Lefty what the DMNR and 'green' grubs did to you absolutely stinks.

Make as much noise as you can about it. Surely some political or media groups would be interested.

 

[Mr Magoo]

If it's a rare plant or something, why is it still there despite human and livestock intervention for over a hundred years? My bet would be that such a plant might only be in that spot because it actually benefits from what humans have done

That is categorically correct. Back in central Scotland a farmer friend of the family had a similar issue. A rare plant was discovered in his sheep paddocks and he was forced to fence off these plants from the sheep. The end result was the rare plant was eventually crowded out by other plants until they were wiped out from his property.

 

[Kidbeey]

Sorry to hear about your rejection. The massive Adani coal mine project looks like getting full approval, on what politicans describe as 'just dry dusty land'. I think that the new port to be built is very close to the Great Barrier Reef as well. Sure they will put hundreds of conditions on them, but it will end up like the coal seam gas conditions, where there is gas bubbling in the creeks and rivers and people getting sick and driven off their properties, all irreversible stuff.
Why they cannot approve your small request is farcical.

 

[Simmo]

Mate, can you PM me your permit application number??

 

[cecc]

Sorry to hear this dreadful story and I feel for you lefty, it make me sick when jut the other day I hear of QLD govt, approving that big mine for Adani in the Gallilee Basin, and yet a little Aussie just wanting to persuse a dream is treated in this Gestapo sort of manner.

What about taking it to current affairs, to bring out into the open and the Australian public.?

 

[Lefty]

Still waiting for a response from the DMNR - I won't get one before Monday at the earliest I expect. If they don't reply by the end of Monday I'll be back on the phone. Until they clearly outline the reasons and the section of the act applied, I'm still in the dark.

The president of the QSMA tells me that they have just added another 9 or so pages of paperwork to the process of simply buying a pre-existing claim and further complicated it.

I think it's pretty clear - they want small-time miners and prospectors gone.