If everyone did this, would more fossicking areas be open on private property?

[Lefty]

Called past Springsure on the way home from Glenalva last week, stopped at the Mitre 10 and paid the $5 fee for a fossicking permit at the labradorite site. We couldn't stay long so we only specked for a little while but picked up a few pieces that will facet.

The lady at the hardware store told me that the $5 fee is donated to the local ambulance fund. I guess it could just as easily be donated to any worthwhile local charity or service - rural firies, local state emergency brigade, blue nurses, meals on wheel, flying doc etc.

This struck me as an excellent idea on a number of fronts. The first is obvious, an important local charity or service benfits. The second relates to the scourge that has devastated fossicking outside the few government designated areas - public liability. I'm not suggesting for a moment that it would prevent action being taken against a property owner who had allowed fossickers onto their land. But it would take a pretty thick-skinned and callous individual to sue the landholder because he had slipped over and broken his toe while not looking where he was stepping, if suing meant destroying the source of donation funding to the local ambulance or the caregivers who tend to the old and sick.

True, law firms often have the social conscience of a dog on a croquet lawn but how would judges and juries respond? How would you like it widely known that you destroyed the funding for a local organization that provides additional care for people with cancer, just for your own personal gain, just because you were a klutz and didn't look where you were walking in the bush?

Eastern Australia is pretty rich in gemmy deposits but most of them are on private land, in Queensland at least. There were a lot more private fossicking areas years ago but so many - if not most of them - have closed down. There are numerous reasons, people going out there and doing the wrong things such as making a mess, leaving gates open, bathing with soap in stock troughs etc is one major reason but I reckon public liability probably trumps them all.

If more property owners could be convinced to do this, would more areas open/re-open I wonder?

[Jimnyjerry]

Great idea Lefty 

Do not expect judges to do a honourable thing they are bound by the law and all used to be 'trilobites' once.

[tinker]

Poor old judges, trilobites is so true, I was a cop for 32 years and most of the time you went before these learned old gentlemen they were asleep at the bench after lunch and I could not understand how they come up with some of their decisions, I guess it was by devine intervention.

[Lefty]

I move that we take the idea before the Australian Fossickers Association!

Erm....do we have such a body?

Seriously, I think it's something lapidary clubs could look into. Agree that the "trilobites" are bound by the rule of the law but it might be something of a shield for the property owner. If it became widely known that you had sued and destroyed the Anakie fund for little old ladies with cancer (picking a non-existent entity for arguments sake) - and it sooner or later would - I reckon you would have people spitting on you as you walked down the street. Would you want that? Pretty sure I would end up climbing down and withdrawing my case.

It might not stop people suing other people for their own clumsiness - but I'll bet it would be a reasonable deterrant in many cases.

[Bucket]

Poor old judges, trilobites is so true, I was a cop for 32 years and most of the time you went before these learned old gentlemen they were asleep at the bench after lunch and I could not understand how they come up with some of their decisions, I guess it was by devine intervention.

Ahhh Tinker, a man after my own heart.  You pulled court duty as well did you?

[Mouse]

I move that we take the idea before the Australian Fossickers Association!

Erm....do we have such a body?

Seriously, I think it's something lapidary clubs could look into. Agree that the "trilobites" are bound by the rule of the law but it might be something of a shield for the property owner. If it became widely known that you had sued and destroyed the Anakie fund for little old ladies with cancer (picking a non-existent entity for arguments sake) - and it sooner or later would - I reckon you would have people spitting on you as you walked down the street. Would you want that? Pretty sure I would end up climbing down and withdrawing my case.

It might not stop people suing other people for their own clumsiness - but I'll bet it would be a reasonable deterrant in many cases.

A good thought, not sure about the body but someone must be running the National functions, maybe start at State level and get them talking together about it.
Of course you are preaching to the converted (I hope ALL that are on THIS forum are converted) and if they are not all converted then with luck this may change them, but I fear the ones that would be "spat upon" would enjoy lathering up in that spit. They may be closer to Trilobites than we.
A worthwhile cause to pursue.