The small miner and native title

the long version

"The grant of almost all mining tenure Australia wide was 'frozen' on 23rd December 1996 after the Wik High Court decision and remains 'frozen' to this day. This government action completely caught out the traditional small miners. This is the story of one of those small miners. What started out as an attempt to get his application for a mining lease granted by the Queensland State Government, turned into an attempt to get all small mining tenure granted by developing a number of Indigenous Land Use Agreements that covered all Aboriginal concerns and all types of Mining Tenure within the vast North Queensland Land Council Aboriginal Corporation area. This attempt over a five and a half year period was constantly thwarted by the continuous manipulations of a number of key players, and an unworkable Act of Parliament."