Paper Petition

The petition of citizens of Queensland draws to the attention of the House of restrictions imposed by the Emerald Mining Registrar on hand miners of the Anakie Mining field. These restrictions deny hand miners the right to the entire mineral on our claims by not allowing miners to process by hand the material legally extracted from our claims for water storage or the sapphires that are in the walls of our water storage facility. These claims are only allowed to be 30 metres x 30 metres in which we need a dwelling, water storage facility, processing plant and hand mining equipment. The water storage has to be large enough to last through extended periods of drought for a viable living to be achieved. We are now denied the right to sapphires and other minerals on our claims of which we pay rent, rates, royalty, and compensation under an Indigenous Land Use Agreement on 100% of our claims, but cannot have the sapphires and other minerals legally excavated on our claims for water. We believe our right to these minerals has been illegally taken from us. This will prevent hand miners from making a living on our claims and create more unemployment in our community.

Your petitioners therefore request the House to have these restrictions removed from the hand miners of the Anakie Gemfields.