In New South Wales, mines are required to use a registered mining surveyor to carry out surveys and prepare mine plans.
To become a registered mining surveyor, firstly requires a surveyor to meet a number of criteria including holding an approved educational qualification (minimum of 3 year degree), minimum mining surveying experience and pass a number of assessments some of which include the completion of a specified project.
Determinations
The BOSSI Determination - Board Examinations governs the conduct of examinations for a Certificate of Competency as a registered mining surveyor.
The assessments are carried out by BOSSI and successful candidates are granted a certificate of competency as:
- unrestricted for opencut and underground surveying or
- opencut for opencut surveying only.
BOSSI then grants registration to the mining surveyor, however registration is required to be renewed annually and Continuing Professional Development (CPD) for registered mining surveyors is mandatory for renewal of registration.
The rules were applied from 1 November 2001 to surveyors assistants seeking to qualify for a Certificate of Competency as a registered mining surveyor.
Survey and drafting directions
The survey and drafting directions on the Resources and Energy website are to be followed by all mining surveyors in all open cut and underground operations. Issued by the Surveyor General on the advice of the Board of Surveying and Spatial Information, they provide for the hardcopy and digital recording, storage and preparation of the Mine Workings Plan and Mine Record Tracing.
Legislation
The NSW survey system is governed by the Surveying and Spatial Information Act 2002 No 83, and the functions of the system are set out in the Surveying and Spatial Information Regulation 2017.
Both of these can be viewed on the NSW Legislation site or downloaded from the Australasian Legal Information Institute.