Hunt on Mining Law of Western Australia has been established for more than 32 years as an essential reference for all legal issues relating to the mining industry. Although it deals with the law as applied to exploration and mining in Western Australia, it is of use to mining law practitioners in other States and the Northern Territory because there are many common principles of mining law throughout Australia and because the book deals extensively with topics of native title, environmental protection and mines safety - topics of general application, as is much of the case law discussed in the book.


This new edition, the fifth, will be widely and warmly welcomed. Michael Hunt has been joined as co-author by Tim Kavenagh, a Western Australian mining lawyer with over 30 years' experience both as a barrister appearing in the courts on mining matters and as an in-house counsel to major corporations. James Hunt is the third co-author, and involved on a daily basis with mining-related commercial activity, mining tenure advice and Warden's Court matters.


Many changes have taken place in Western Australian mining law since the previous edition was published seven years ago - 10 amendments to the Mining Act and 20 amendments to the Mining Regulations. In that period, there has been a substantial volume of case law through decisions in the High Court, the Supreme Court and the Warden's Court. Other significant changes have arisen as a result of more experience of the impact of the Native Title Act on the application of mining law and because the intervening seven years have enabled the authors to gain much practical experience with the processes for proceedings before the Warden, which were new and untested when the fourth edition was published.


The authors have expanded the scope of the book to include new chapters on environmental protection and mines safety. Extensive cross-referencing to AMPLA (the Resources and Energy Law Association) articles has been included to assist readers in finding deeper analysis of issues.


The new edition reflects all these changes and states the law as at 1 June 2015. The basic structure of previous editions is retained - chapter-by-chapter commentary which follows the layout of the Mining Act itself.