Native Title Act Process
The State Government has a policy whereby applicants for Exploration Licences and Prospecting Licences will have to sign a Regional Standard Heritage Agreement (RSHA) or prove they have an existing Alternative Heritage Agreement before the applications will be submitted to the Native Title Act 1993 (NTA) Expedited Procedure (Kimberley Region excluded).
Prior to the amended NTA, applications for mining tenure completed the Mining Act procedures before being submitted to the NTA procedures. Mining Lease applications can now be processed in parallel with the NTA upon request from the applicant. If the request is not made Mining Act processing may be completed first.
A tenement cannot be granted unless it has satisfied the future act requirements of the NTA (except in some special circumstances where pre-existing rights apply, such as in some State Agreement Acts - see S24IF of NTA).
Work intended to be carried out on Mining Lease tenements is of importance to NTA procedures (particularly negotiation and the National Native Title Tribunal (NNTT) hearing processes) in terms of its potential impact upon any registered native title rights and interests. Therefore the detailing of proposed work is crucial to assessing the impact on native title and determining the scope of an agreement.
Page Index
Processing Applications for Prospecting / Exploration Licences under the Native Title Act 1993 (CTH)
Statutory Declarations
Copies of Agreements
Processing Applications for Prospecting / Exploration Licences under the Native Title Act 1993 (CTH)
A Flowchart for Processing Applications for Prospecting / Exploration Licences under the Native Title Act 1993 (CTH) (under review) and a corresponding Information Paper (under review) detail the process. A specially prepared copy of a Statutory Declaration for an Exploration Licence or a Prospecting Licence, which is referred to in the Information Paper, is also provided for use.
