The Queensland Government and/or the Department of Mines is currently proposing to remove mining claims from the Mineral Resources Act, and hence, the objectives of the MOLA Amendment Bill (2012) and the legislative, regulatory and financial protections afforded to Small Scale Miners under this legislation. This proposed action is being justified by the QRDIP team by a most controversial, “Cost Benefit Analysis”, which excluded consultation with the Small Scale Mining Industry and most regional local governments, which even the Director General of Resources (Mike Kaiser) has expressed his reservations on this Cost Benefit Analysis’s value, at recent meeting with local Government and the DG over this Mining Claim matter.
The Mining Claim tenure system has historically provided the people of Queensland an affordable simple process for all Queenslanders to access mining tenure/s in Queensland.
The Mineral Resources Act 1989, has served the people of Queensland well, with Mining Claims and Prescribed Mining Claims operations, by and large, meet the “Objectives of the Act,” within a fully functioning framework.
Small Scale Mining and mining claims are currently underpinned by the Mining and other Legislation Amendment Bill (MOLA) 2012, which the extracted objectives designed by the Department of Mines is as follows:
Mining and other Legislation Amendment Bill (MOLA) 2012
(Extract MOLA Bill 2012)
The Queensland Small Miners Council member organisations are not supportive of the Government or the Department of Resources removing Mining Claims from the Mineral Resources Act and cannot see now what has dramatically changed since the introduction of the MOLA legislation in 2012 which warrants now the removal of Mining Claims from the MRAs.
The QSMC would like you to have your say to this QRIDP review and we request you fill in the survey below.
QSMC - QRIDP Small Scale Mining Survey
You can provide your feedback to the “Queensland Resource Industry Development Plan” on the proposed reform by completing this survey below, which will be directed to the QRIDP team and also to Government and to the Opposition.