Many residents had voiced concerns about the further prospect of further coal seam gas mining following after the Times published an Exploration Licence Application lodged by Ulan South Pty Ltd yesterday.

When asked about the application’s potential to investigate avenues of coal seam gas mining, Mr King immediately ruled it out.

“Definitely not. This type of exploration application is purely minerals based and makes no provision or allowance for that type of mining.”

It is more likely that the application is aimed at allowing Ulan South to search for precious non-metallic minerals including diamonds, corundum, rubies and sapphires.

The search for these types of minerals is most often what motivates this type of application.

“We are a consultancy company concerned with the composition and lodging of legal claims in this area so while I am not entirely privy to the motives of our client company, I can tell you that this application does not seek approval for coal seam gas mining as it is not able to do so.”

Mr King explained that policy in this area was dictated by two key pieces of legislation, the Mining Amendment Act 2008 and the Mining and Petroleum Legislation Amendment (Land Access) Act 2010.

Both acts provide a new definition of “landholder” which includes a category of “secondary landholder”, for persons who do not have a right to possession of the land but do have a registered interest in the land. The requirements of title holders in relation to accessing land for exploration and the rights of both categories of landholders are set out in the amended legislation.