Bendigo goldmine believed to be a new El Dorado

Press, 4 August 1981, Page 23

Bendigo goldmine believed to be a new El Dorado

By

JOHN TOWNSLEY

of AAP

Melbourne A group of leading Bendigo businessmen want to reopen the old goldmines in the town because they believe Victoria is sitting on the biggest El Dorado in the world. The businessmen, members of the Bendigo Mining NL (no liability) want to pour $2 million into reopening the mines and seek $25 million of public money. But the Government's Mines Department has turned them down. The Liberal member of the Legislative Assembly for Bendigo, Mr Daryl McClure, said, “The department turned the company down because it doesn't want to set a precedent. It doesn’t want to give a search licence to a company .in an area controlled by another company.” Western Mining Corporation, one of Australia’s mining giants, recently had its exploration licence renewed and the Government is not keen to create a clash of interests.

An exploration licence covers an unlimited area while a search licence is restricted to about 40 acres. The Bendigo Mining plans are within Western Mining interests.

"Western Mining has an exploration permit for about 50,000 hectares and in three years the company has drilled about three holes, but otherwise is doing little,” said Mr McClure.

He said experts had told him the Bendigo goldfields

could be twice as valuable as the Kalgoorlie fields in Western Australia, or probably the richest in the world.

He said the reopening of the Bendigo goldfields could reactivate the dormant Bendigo Stock Exchange, which at the height of the gold boom was as busy as the Melbourne Stock Exchange, one of the busiest in the Southern Hemisphere. Bendigo and Ballarat are the only two non-capital cities in Australia that have stock exchanges.

Mr McClure said the Bendigo Mining Company would use its own funds and seek financial help from merchant banks to raise the $2 million. If successful it would then float itself publicly and look for $25 million.

Big mining companies had a stranglehold on Victoria, said Mr McClure. Of 375 exploration and search licences in the state up to April, 142 were held by C.R.A., 19 by Dampier and 24 by Western Mining. "Three companies control more than half the mineralised area of this state. Victoria is locked away to await the pleasure of exploration licence holders. It is no wonder that the real investment in mining is in other states where Governments demand action,” he said.

Mr McClure called on the Premier, Mr Lindsay Thompson, to take immediate action to encourage mining investment in Victoria. “There needs to be a Minister especially appointed to administer the Mines Act.” “The Mines and Energy

Minister, Mr Digby Crozier, has too big a job to' deal with the S.E.C. and Gas and Fuel Corporation as well as the mines.”

The Bendigo Mining Company is made up basically of third and fourth generation Bendigonians, including Douglas Cahill, Richard Dungey and Dick Sandner. The company wants to start its search for gold by reopening the Central Deborah mine, about 2km from the Bendigo Post Office. The mine closed in 1954, ending major gold exploration in the Bendigo area. Mr McClure said the Central Deborah was linked with three other mines about 200 metres away. He said the mine offered a unique opportunity of getting below ground and doing something from there because Western Mining had been drilling from the surface and down to depths of 500 metres.

Mr McClure said the Bendigo Mining Company could start from 500 metres down and drill from there.

Bendigo Trust, of which Mr McClure is chairman, conducted an experiment 18 months ago when it pumped our water from the waterfilled Central Deborah mine to a depth of about 30 metres.

The reason for the trust's experiment is because it wants to establish a tourist attraction in the Central Deborah mine. Mr McClure said this tourist attraction, complete with mining artefacts, could still go ahead side by side with

the gold digging work.

He said it would take about $500,000 to install a 200 ft shaft for tourists alongside the major shaft. “It would be a brilliant tourist attraction for the 70,000 tourists who visit Bendigo each year,” said Mr McClure.