How many nsw people go wet prospecting?

How many nsw people go wet prospecting and use a highbanker?
This form of wet prospecting has been banned in nsw by the government, but they have made a big mistake in the banning process where they got the paperwork passed illegally.
They are now scrambling to keep this secret so they can hold onto their jobs.
These people need to be sacked for doing the wrong thing.

Does anyone else know why this has been dragged out for so long or is some one being bribed to keep this quiet.???

It smells of the greens using and abusing everything at our expense.

Interesting.  So they passed the legislation illegally?  Does that mean the legislation and fines associated with the Fossicking Act is no longer legally enforceable? I'd like to hope so.  And it sounds like they could be sued if they broke a law.  They seem pretty happy to prosecute and fine prospectors for pursuing what was once a great hobby...  might be time for them to enjoy a little victimization of their own for a change, eh?

I own a decent river sluice - but not a highbanker (2-tiered sluice).  I'd have liked to have gotten more serious with sluicing, if it wasn't for recent changes.  It was made clear to me recently that it was 'aggressive posturing' (by some people on this forum) on the subject of 'dredging' that both triggered and then forced the reaction that banned Highbankers under the rewritten Fossicking Act.  I'm not going to go into further detail on this other than to say that they were warned this would be a possible complication and now we all get to suffer as a result.

The Greens are sometimes rabid when it comes to their zealotry.  Their cause attracts radicals who act without logic or reason. Nothing they do is ever longsighted.  The Greens and the green-cause got Peter Garrett elected as President of the Australian Conservation Foundation and as a Senator within the Australian Labor Party... and he promised to deal with Japanese Whaling in our waters.  Yet he did nothing of consequence (other than ban a new breed of cat from sale in Australia that I had arranged to purchase). He altered many of his earlier political views after he gained office... with many of his supporters branding him a "Turncoat".  Even his music fans and political supporters turned on him.  Later he became Minister for Environmental Protection - but was demoted by PM Kevin Rudd over the botched Home Insulation Program.  He resigned after supporting Gillard during the failed 2013 Leadership Spill. Prospecting Australia started a petition to the Victorian Minister for Environment and Climate Change (Ryan Smith) recently with 2,133 supporters before the petition closed. The Fossicking Policy now in effect by NSW Environment and Heritage ( http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/topics/parks-reserves-and-protected-areas/park-policies/fossicking ) has become more specific with recent updates.   I haven't looked at the Fossicking Act for State Forests recently but the Greens have been instrumental in crushing prospectors with annual revisions and changes to the specific wording to try and circumvent what had previously been approved and encouraged by the Dept of Mining.

______________________________________________

Whilst technically the prospecting community can't access National Parks for the purpose of looking for gold, you might be surprised to see how tight the regulations have become in recent years.

Just how dumb is our legislation in NSW National parks?  Apparently, carrying illegal firearms and ammunition/explosives in a Park carried the same offense as taking a photograph... or even conducting research.  

https://www.legislation.nsw.gov.au/#/view/regulation/2009/427/full

20   Weapons
(1)  A person must not in a park:
(a)  carry or discharge or have in the person’s possession any firearm, or imitation firearm, within the meaning of the Firearms Act 1996 or prohibited weapon within the meaning of the Weapons Prohibition Act 1998 etc.
Maximum penalty: 30 penalty units.

21   Commercial activities
(1)  A person must not in a park:
(d)  take any photograph, video, movie or television film for sale, hire or profit.
Maximum penalty: 30 penalty units

23   Research activities
(1)  A person must not carry out any kind of research in a park.
Maximum penalty: 30 penalty units.

______________________________________________

Now the Greens themselves are despised more than when I was a kid.  I note that the Greens were pushing National Parks into overtaking the Prospecting zone outside of the NSW gold town of Hill End.  It was an uproar by prospectors that appeared to stall their expansionism there.  The stated goal was that the land there would become National Park and that it would of course become inaccessible to fossickers.

A prospector once said to me that the Greens and National Parks are just little "empire builders".  They try to justify their own existence by secretly obtaining land as quietly as they can and then convert the status so that nobody can visit, use or enjoy it.  There's massive areas of the Far North that are now fenced in, locked up and overrun by feral pigs... land that prospectors once loved to visit. Many of the employees of National Parks are members of the Green movement.  They seem drawn to the job. My last straw with National Parks was when they told me I could only take commercial pictures of the Blue Mountains National Park with an expensive Permit... unless I was standing on a public footpath or was outside the park when the photographs were to be taken.  

The US just withdrew from UNESCO, didn't they?  Yes, they did.  And UNESCO rules are why we can't sell large gold nuggets we find to buyers overseas without an 'authority' to do so... with the same rules applying to meteorites.  I think it's high time Australia left it as well.

Department of Resources and Geosience, (DRG)
Is what they are called, I think.?
They need to be held accountable for this blunder.
Their own Minister doesn't know about this............ It seems that they are trying to keep this from the Minister and trying to keep their jobs. Talk about a secret society, the untouchables, call them what you like, but they are downright low lifes trying to hide the truth............. They should have fixed their mistakes instead of letting this go on for so long.
They are after all, public servants.