Think of mining and you may imagine gaping great holes such as the iron ore mines of the Pilbara or cavernous underground workings of the copper mines of Mt Isa.
In outback New South Wales, the mining of Australia’s national gemstone looks quite different. Opal mining is the home of the one-man operation, where small-scale miners prise opal from the earth often with no more than a jackhammer and a rickshaw. Opal is not kind to the commercial miners who chase defined resource targets. As one miner puts it “opal doesn’t follow rules, opal is where it wants to be”.
Australia supplies 95% of the world’s opal. But mines at Lightning Ridge and White Cliffs, the main opal production hubs in NSW, are currently under threat. In May, the department of mines and regional NSW instructed 858 miners to stop work, after a review found 3,343 mining claims granted between 1 January 2015 and 13 February 2023 were invalid.
Opal mining on those 50m by 50m plots of land ground to a sudden halt.
“We weren’t even notified,” says Petar Borkovic, a second generation opal miner. “No one in the industry knew anything about it until one of us was in Dubbo and saw the minister on Channel 7 news saying the opal industry was being shut down.
“Then, of course, everyone went into panic mode. The department goes on about safe working environments [for local staff] but they’re not doing that when they upset 800 miners. It treats the whole industry with disrespect.”
After revealing the error, the department began a title revalidation program that required miners to re-apply for their claims, and refunded the fees paid by those whose claim was found to be invalid. Natural resources minister Courtney Houssos held meetings in Lightning Ridge and White Cliffs in an attempt to clear the confusion.
In a statement to Guardian Australia, Houssos says she understands “the importance of opal mining to the Lightning Ridge and White Cliffs communities” and had apologised on behalf of the government for the disruption.
“My focus has been on getting miners back on their claims as soon as possible in accordance with the law,” she says.
As of early this month, the department had received 429 applications to re-approve mining claims and 218 claims had been re-issued or resolved. Some $46,680 in administrative fees and levies had been refunded to affected miners.
Miners remain worried. Opal mining in the South Australian town of Mintabie was shut down in 2019, and the Queensland government in 2022 instituted a 12-month moratorium on granting new opal claims.
Lightning Ridge opal miner Kelly Tishler says she fears they “could be looking at the last generation of opal miners”.
“The average age of an opal miner is 63 and these are people who work remotely, live off-grid, don’t have access to internet, don’t have access to many mod cons, but prefer to live that way, and they are being asked to adhere to rules that are more in line with coal mining and big business,” Tishler says.
An independent review into the statutory framework for administration and regulation of small-scale opal titles is currently under way. However the Lightning Ridge Miners Association (LRMA) says the reform should be swiftly introduced to reassure the industry.
The LRMA says it felt the lack of support for the industry from government to be “quite disconcerting”.
“The recent changes are creating, for our members, a lot of confusion, uncertainty and doubt as to the future of this industry,” LRMA general manager Kavitha Barron says. “We are lobbying the minister to make a couple of changes to the regulations that will at least reinstate over-the-counter titles while they are reviewing the entire legislative framework.”
Barron says the stop work order had financial impacts on the small communities, from those who work in opal production to wholesalers and retailers.
“This has had a flow-on affect to global markets,” she says.
Working on Barkandji country
Lightning Ridge is 700km north-west of Sydney. Drive another 700km west along the Kamilaroi and Mitchell highways, through the town of Bourke, and you’ll reach White Cliffs.
Graeme Downton has been living and mining in White Cliffs for 30 years. His home is a five-bedroom dugout, an underground home cut straight out of the rock. He also operates an opal shop. Both are on leasehold land and cannot be converted to freehold.
The area is held as native title claim by the Barkandji people. In 2021 the Barkandji Native Title Corporation signed an Indigenous Land Use Agreement with the NSW government to grant permanent leases to people living in dugouts at White Cliffs. State housing minister Melinda Pavey said the agreement was a “win-win” because it provided permanent security for residents while recognising Barkandji claim to the land.
Barkandji Native Title Corporation chairman Leroy Johnson says he understands the concern of people in White Cliffs but says the lease agreement is working.
“Residential leases can be handed down through wills or sold at market value and native title doesn’t have any say on who they get sold to, though we have negotiated for a first right of reply [in lease sales],” he says. “The residents pay for those leases the same as they always have so there’s no change.”
But negotiation over the granting of mining claims is ongoing. Downton says the opal industry has been left in limbo.
“In August 2018 the department stopped granting new applications and we can’t reapply until native title is resolved,” he says. “As a commercial operation I get no compensation for that and I’ve got a quarter of a million dollars’ worth of equipment sitting idle in the yards.”
Mining leases do not necessarily extinguish all native title rights, meaning non-exclusive native title with some limited rights could still be granted over areas currently subject to opal claims.
Johnson says traditional owners are still trying to negotiate a solution.
“We’re still working out [with the government] how find a solution where those opal miners can do what they want to do and we can still preserve our native title rights on the land,” Johnson says.
