New South Wales Consolidated Acts

PUBLIC WORKS AND PROCUREMENT ACT 1912 - SECT 141

141 Constructing Authority entitled to minerals

(1) In this section
"minerals" means mines or deposits of minerals within land taken under this Act after the commencement of the Public Works and Local Government (Amendment) Act 1967 , including land so taken after that commencement pursuant to the authority conferred by any other Act, whether passed before or after that commencement.

(2) Subject to this section, the Constructing Authority shall be entitled to all minerals other than--

(a) minerals that are expressly excepted in the notification of the taking, or

(b) minerals that were vested in the Crown immediately before the taking, not being minerals so vested that--

(i) are expressly appropriated as such in the notification of the taking, or

(ii) necessarily must be dug or carried away or used in the construction of the works,

but any exception referred to in paragraph (a) of this subsection shall be deemed not to include minerals that necessarily must be dug or carried away or used in the construction of the works.

(3) Subject to subsection (3A), the Governor may, by notification published in the Gazette--

(a) before payment of compensation for the taking of minerals within the land described in the notification, and

(b) before any disposition of those minerals, being a disposition made by the Constructing Authority or other person in whom, by or under this or any other Act, they are vested in consequence of the taking,

declare that minerals taken and within the land so described are divested from the Constructing Authority or, where some other person is specified, that person, and vested in a specified person for a specified estate, subject to all trusts, obligations, estates, interests, contracts, charges, rates and rights-of-way or other easements from which they were freed and discharged upon the taking, other than such of them as may be expressly excepted in the notification, and thereupon those minerals shall be divested and shall vest accordingly.
For the purposes of this subsection and of any notification published thereunder
"minerals" shall not include any minerals that, immediately before the taking, were vested in the Crown or any minerals that necessarily must be dug or carried away or used in the construction of the works.

(3A) Where a resumption application relating to land taken under this Act (whether or not pursuant to the authority conferred by any other Act passed before or after the commencement of this subsection) has been lodged under section 31A(2) of the Real Property Act 1900 with the Registrar-General--

(a) a notification under subsection (3) published in the Gazette after the commencement of this subsection may not divest from the Constructing Authority, or other person in whom they are vested, the minerals taken and within that land, and

(b) any transfer of those minerals after that land has been brought under the provisions of the Real Property Act 1900 shall, for the purposes of subsection (5), be deemed, upon its registration under that Act, to vest those minerals under this section in the transferee.

(4) Upon publication of a notification under subsection (3), the Constructing Authority or other person from whom they are declared by the notification to be divested shall, in respect of minerals vested under that subsection by the notification--

(a) where the minerals so vested are under the provisions of the Real Property Act 1900 , make a request under section 46C of that Act in relation to those minerals and furnish such of the evidence required in connection therewith as may be in his or her possession or under his or her control, or

(b) where the minerals so vested are not under the provisions of the Real Property Act 1900 , forward a copy of the notification of the vesting to the Registrar-General who shall, upon receipt thereof, cause a memorandum of the vesting of those minerals to be prepared and registered in the General Register of Deeds kept under the Registration of Deeds Act 1897 and, for the purposes of that Act, that memorandum shall be deemed to be a registration copy of an instrument duly registered under that Act.

(4A) A request made by the Constructing Authority or another person in compliance with subsection (4)(a) shall be deemed to have been made by the person entitled so to do under section 46C of the Real Property Act 1900 .

(5) Where, pursuant to a vesting under this section, a person has become entitled to an estate or interest in minerals equivalent to an estate or interest in those minerals converted by section forty-five of this Act into a claim for compensation the person shall, notwithstanding anything contained in this Act, be deemed never to have been entitled to compensation pursuant to that claim.

(6) For the purposes of this section, where land described in a notification published under subsection three of this section is land that by any Act is declared upon the taking thereof to be vested in the Crown as Crown land within the meaning of the Crown Land Management Act 2016 or land subject to a declaration under section 25A of the Crown Lands Consolidation Act 1913 , the minerals taken and within that land (other than minerals that, immediately before the taking, were vested in the Crown and minerals that necessarily must be dug or carried away or used in the construction of the works) shall be deemed never to have been so vested or reserved and sections forty-three and forty-four and subsection one of section forty-five of this Act shall, in the case of minerals so deemed never to have vested, be deemed to have applied to and in respect of those minerals, upon the taking thereof.

(7) The costs and expenses of making any request or effecting any registration under subsection four of this section shall be borne by the Constructing Authority or the other person referred to in that subsection and no stamp duty shall be chargeable in respect of any such request or any instrument whereby minerals are vested under this section.

(8) Without limiting the discretion conferred upon the Registrar-General by section 46C of the Real Property Act 1900 , the Registrar-General shall not, when creating a folio of the Registrar kept under that Act or making recordings in that Register in respect of minerals pursuant to a request made under subsection (4)(a), be required to make any recordings in that Register, other than--

(a) such recordings as may, in the Registrar-General's opinion, be necessary with respect to the vesting of the minerals in the person and for the estate specified, in the notification of the vesting of those minerals, as the person in whom, and the estate for which, they were thereby vested, and

(b) any recordings relating to the land described in the notification, being recordings that appeared in that Register immediately before the taking of that land, other than recordings relating only to estates or interests excepted in the notification.

(9) Nothing in this section shall be construed as affecting the provisions of sections one hundred and forty-two to one hundred and forty-nine, both inclusive, of this Act.

(10) In this section, a reference to a notification of the taking of land includes a reference to an acquisition notice under the Land Acquisition (Just Terms Compensation) Act 1991 .