Western Australia is at risk of missing out on the latest gold rush due to bureaucratic hurdles, Amalgamated Prospectors and Leaseholders Association president Sean Ashcroft said.
“We are getting an enormous amount of inquiries in WA,” he said.
“But the biggest problem in WA is (getting) access to the ground.
“The procedures you’ve got to go through to get out there are just enormous and when people find that out they think, ‘Well, bloody hell, this is too hard’.”
People can mine in WA with a miner’s right which can be bought from any mining registrar’s office for $25, but that only allows prospectors on to certain land where they can extract up to 20kg of rock, ore or minerals using only hand-held equipment.
According to Ashcroft, the red tape starts when prospectors try to get in touch with leaseholders to obtain permission to access their land, and that information is not available through the State Government.
“Every person who’s an Australian citizen should be free to go out there and prospect for the State,” he said.
“But when you get to the procedure, lots of people just walk away.”
Earlier this year gold reached an all time high in terms of Australian dollars when it traded at $1564/oz.