Mining rights loophole

Press, 7 September 1981, Page 13

Mining rights loophole

Parliamentary reporter Companies holding mining privileges can get round the law by transferring shares, the Parliamentary select committee on the Mining Bill has been told. In a joint submission, the Environmental Defence Society and the Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society said that the Ministerial controls preventing transferring, leasing, mortgaging, or disposing of mining privileges without the Minister’s

consent, could be circumvented by simple share transfer. . “In such a situation the Minister would be powerless to prevent the transfer of effective control of the licence or privilege to a company or person who would never have qualified in the normal manner,” the submission said. The petitioners sought a definition of transfer of privileges that would include passing of more than 50 per

cent of share capital from holders of the privilege to another company. The submission objected to rights under the bill of entry on to priate and Maori land for mining activities without the owner’s consent. “If the normal market forces are not sufficient to induce the landowner to sell his rights to a company that wishes to acquire them, then that should be the end of the matter,” the submission said.