Application for prospecting licence refused - Form 20 deficient

Before an application can be made for a prospecting licence, the applicant must mark out the land sought in the prescribed manner: s 105 Mining Act 1978 (WA). The prescribed manner in regulation 59 of the Mining regulations 1981 (WA) includes the requirement to fix firmly to the datum post a notice of marking in form of Form 20. The Form 20 requires the description of the boundaries to be inserted.

In this case the applicant failed to insert the description of the boundaries on the Form 20.

He sought to amend the Form 20 pursuant to s142 of the Act on the basis that there was a “misdescription”.

The warden refused the application for the prospecting licence because the failure to record a description of the boundaries of the tenement was “fundamental” in that the primary purpose of the Form 20 is to identify the boundaries. This failure deprived the reader of the Form 20 to identify the location of the correct boundaries which could not be characterised as a misdescription that could be corrected by an application under s 142.