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A state government "oversight" has left Lightning Ridge opal miner Shane Morris without a job, a licence, or even an explanation.
Key points:
- A government "oversight" has left 827 opal miners in Lightning Ridge without a job
- The error was introduced in 2015 and was not noticed until eight years later
- The department says miners might be able to get new licences if they reapply
The third-generation miner says he has been reduced to zero income overnight, as has his 19-year-old daughter, Taia.
"If we can't go to work and produce material to sell, there goes her dream of going to university," Mr Morris said.
"To be shut down is devastating. It's a big kick in the guts, and it's a big blow to the industry."
The Wiradjuri man is one of 827 small-scale miners around Lightning Ridge who were given invalid licences because of an administrative error which nobody noticed for eight years.
The error renders all small-scale licences granted between January 1, 2015 and February 13, 2023 null and void.
Mr Morris has not been told that his licence is invalid, nor received any form of communication from the government.
So far the only official confirmation the majority of miners have seen is a notice put up on the Mining, Exploration and Geoscience Department website.
A department spokesperson said miners might be able to renew their licences if they reapplied.
"Each mineral claim being redetermined will need to be assessed on its merits against criteria," the spokesperson said.
"All affected parties will receive information packages specific to them from the department."
That criteria will include a previously unmet requirement that miners must notify landholders before having their licences approved.
That mandate had not been enforced nor communicated to miners or landholders by the department for the past eight years.
Natural Resources Minister Courtney Houssos said a review found that the problems were caused by reforms made in 2015 to the 1992 Mining Act.
The department has sent emails to some miners warning they must stop work and renew their licences in 12 weeks, or they could go to someone else.
Tony Webb received one such letter shortly after arriving back to his home town of Lightning Ridge to chase his dream of being a miner.
The father sold his house in Victoria and moved back home to the opal fields with hopes of striking it rich, but was told to stop working before he'd even started.
Mr Webb spent more than $100,000 on equipment he can't use, an invalid licence, and access to a dam which is drying up alongside his savings.
"If we can't mine to make money, the little shops around here, the pubs, the clubs, the supermarket, they all suffer too," Mr Webb said.
"It's not just the miners. It's the whole town."
John Slack-Smith, who runs the Glengarry Hilton, said this would hurt him, both as a publican as well as an opal miner himself.
Mr Slack-Smith estimates about 90 per cent of the miners out at the Grawin Opal Fields live pay cheque to pay cheque, and can't afford to stop working while waiting for paperwork.
"They won't be able to survive," he said.
"If they don't have any income they can't come to the pub to get a feed. They can't go the grocery store to get a feed if they have no money.
"Over the past eight years, all the miners have done their job.
"They've paid their rates and done everything by the book like they were told to and now the government's stuffing up their paperwork."
Mr Slack-Smith said many people were angry that they had spent the past eight years paying for invalid licences.
A department spokesperson said they were considering what to do with previously paid fees.
Lightning Ridge Miners' Association president Sebastian Deisenberger said rules, bureaucracy, and government fees had continually climbed over the 30 years he'd been mining.
Mr Deisenberger said the sense of "adventure" had gone, and it was becoming prohibitively difficult and expensive for beginners to join.
"The good thing here at Lightning Ridge was that the battler, the poorer people, had a really good chance," Mr Deisenberger said.
"In the past, you didn't need much money to start. They changed all that. Every year's getting harder and harder, and this is just the peak of it."
Ms Houssos flagged the government would hold another independent review into the current rules surrounding opal mining.
She said that review would consider the recommendations of a 2011 Wilcox Report, which covers land disputes between farmers and miners.