Andrew Forrest set to bury sand miner Quarry Park’s bid to poke around billionaire’s Minderoo Station

Iron ore billionaire Andrew Forrest is mounting a last-ditch legal bid to stop the McGowan Government from considering a sand miner’s application to explore his beloved Minderoo Station. Mr Forrest’s family pastoral company Forrest & Forrest sent a former judge to the Supreme Court on Monday to argue that Quarry Park’s hotly-disputed prospecting license applications should be killed. Barrister John Gilmour, a former Federal Court judge, said proposed prospecting tenements were incorrectly marked out and should never have been considered by the Warden’s Court. Forrest & Forrest won a Warden’s Court order last year blocking Quarry Park’s application on the basis that the boundaries of the proposed prospecting licenses fell short of strict marking-out requirements under the Mining Act. But Quarry Park has appealed against the decision to WA Mines Minister Bill Johnston and asked him to grant the licences. Mr Gilmour said there was no appeal against Mr Johnston’s decision and Forrest & Forrest wanted the matter taken out of the minister’s hands. He said the Minister had agreed to not make a decision until the Supreme Court had ruled on the action by Forrest & Forrest. Mr Forrest has been fighting since 2014 to stop Quarry Park and related company Onslow Resources exploring on part of 240,000ha Minderoo Station, which he bought in 2009 for $12 million. The station, near Onslow, had been the home of the Forrest family from the 1860s until late last century and was Mr Forrest’s childhood home. Quarry Park hit problems because the boundaries of its proposed mining were indicated by trenches that started more than 25cm and as much as 70cm away from marking posts. Forrest & Forrest argued the Mining Act required that the trench was required to start from the post so the boundaries were clear to everyone. Supporting the bid to block the application in September 2019, Warden O’Sullivan rejected the Quarry Park argument that the words “from the post” in rules related to direction rather than distance. Mr Gilmour said Quarry Park’s prospecting licence application should never have been considered by the Warden’s Court because a tenement had to be clearly marked out before an application could be considered. “The applicant has not complied and everyone else can put their pen down and go back to their office,” he said. Section 105 of the Mining Act says the boundaries “shall be marked out in the prescribed manner and the prescribed shape ... before an application for a mining tenement” is made. State Solicitor’s office lawyer Brendyn Nelson said section 105 contained references to regulations and those regulations could not be ignored when trying to understand the section. Mr Nelson said Government had the power to make regulations about how land should be marked out. “The entire content of section 105 is dependent on the regulations,” he said. Justice Paul Tottle has reserved his decision.