Ridge gets tough on opal ratters
13 June 1996, By John Stapleton
AFTER years of agitation by opal miners, the NSW Government is introducing legislation to stamp out one of the worst crimes than can be committed on an opal field, ratting. Ratting involves going down someone else's claim and stealing opal while a miner is "on colour", that is when, often after years of work, the miner has found a seam that is producing high quality opal.
Ratting has brought tension and distrust to the opal fields, once one of the last bastions of old-fashioned mateship. Shots have been fired, camps blown up, people bashed and millions of dollars worth of opal stolen. An effigy of a ratter was recently strung up from a tree with a noose around its neck.
Both police and miners believe they are dealing with highly organised gangs. Ratters caught in the act have been well armed and well equipped, with night-vision glasses and laser sights fitted to their guns. Top quality black opal, one of the world's most valuable gems, can fetch up to $10,000 a carat. It is easy to fit half a million dollars' worth of the stone in a bucket.The NSW Minister for Mining, Mr Martin, who took a Caucus sub-committee to Lightning Ridge in the State's north-west this week to examine the issue, said the Mining Act would be updated in the next parliamentary sitting as a matter of urgency.
The changes are not only for an increase in penalties to $50,000 and two years' imprisonment from the present six months and $10,000, but for either lifetime or long-term bans on those caught ratting, the length of time to be determined by a magistrate. The miners believe banning ratters from the fields is the only effective way of dealing with them. Mr Martin said it would be cheaper and better than putting them in jail."Ratting is straight-out thieving," he said. "These penalties have worked well at Coober Pedy in South Australia. People get very angry when they have hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of opal stolen and the police have great difficulty doing anything about it."
While rough justice is often the order of the day in a place like Lightning Ridge, where cash is king and most of the population is not on the electoral rolls, police have called for miners not to act as vigilantes.The chief of police in Lightning Ridge, Sergeant Ian Tucker, said ratting was "easy money". "You can tell when a miner's on colour, they buy new cars, they talk, they get pissed, they have money to spend," he said.
"The back of the ute is full of ice and beer."
Opal miner and a director of the Lightning Ridge Miners Association, Mr Bob Barrett, 52, said when he first started mining in the sixties there were only a few dozen people working the fields and the town looked after itself. Now there are at least 7000 people living in and around Lightning Ridge.
"We know who they (the ratters) are," he said. "You see them lining up to sell opal and you know they don't have a claim. "Trying to convict them is another matter."Source: 13 July 1996 The Australian