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1 AMPLA Bull. 10 (1982)
Tribute Agreements

handle is hein.journals/ausreen1 and id is 10 raw text is: AMPLA Bulletin TRIBUTE AGREEMENTS by W. D. Leslie and A. J. Holland* The word tribute in relation to the mining industry has its foundations in the early days in Cornwall in the Stannaries. However, despite the fact that tribute arrangements have been considered by Australian Courts on numerous occasions, the scope of the term has not been the subject of close scrutiny. In the main, the Courts have accepted it as a customary term. For example, in Moffat v. Sheppard(1909) 9 C.L.R. 265 at 271 Griffith C. J. stated:- A licence to work on tribute is a thing well known on mining fields in Queensland and, I suppose, in other parts of Australia. The High Court, apparently has accepted that a tribute may be a bare licence or a licence coupled with a grant (Moffat v. Sheppard) or arrangements where the share of the mineral lessee is a royalty Grundt v. The Great Boulder Proprietary Gold Mines Limited (1938) 59 C.L.R. 641 at 670. The Shorter Oxford Dictionary defines tribute in relation to mining as:- a. the proportion of the value of the ore raised, paid by the miners to the owners or lessors of the land or their representatives. b. the proportion of ore raised or its value paid to the miners by the owners of the mine or land, in payment of their labour. c. hence 'to work on tribute'or 'on the tribute system'on the plan or paying or receiving proportions of the produce. It can be seen therefore that the term encompasses many kinds of arrangements common in the mining industry and the concept is broad enough to extend to exploration arrangements as well as mining (see reference to Companies Act below). The meaning of the term was recently the subject of judicial scrutiny in the South Australian case of Pizzino v. Triplet Industries Nominees Pty. Ltd. (1980) 26 S.A.S.R. 182. This case concerned the interpretation of the word tributer in the Mining Regulations 1972-1977 of the South Australian Mining Act. The word is defined in those Regulations as follows:- A person who works a mine or a portion of a mine under an agreement with the lessee claimholder or proprietor to pay to or receive from such titleholder a proportior or percentage of the produce of the mine or of the value of such produce. The Appellant, Pizzino, brought an application that the Respondent's mineral claim be forfeited pursuant to S.69 of the Mining Act 1971-78 on the ground that the company had failed to comply with the prescribed labour conditions. Sub-regulation 2 of Regulation 63 of the Mining Regulations provides that work carried out by a tributer shall not for the purpose of compliance with labour conditions, be regarded as work carried out by the holder of a mining tenement unless the tribute agreement is first approved by the Warden's Court. In this instance, a person, Frazer, as the operator for a group which owned a Caldwell drill, was working on the claim in question in order to earn a 40% interest. The mine, however, was at all times personally operated by the Respondent. The issue was whether Frazer was a tributer for the purposes of the Mining Regulations. If he was, then as there had not been any approval from the Warden's Court, his work as a tributer could count towards compliance with the labour conditions. It was argued on behalf of the Appellant that the definition of Tributer in the Mining Regulations was exclusive and that covered the field. Accordingly, there was no room for the historical meaning to apply so as to limit the definition to cases where the Tributer takes over the working of a whole mine or a specified part thereof; nor would this alteration necessarily be implied in the statutory definition. The Company argued, however, that the historical meaning of Tributer was not inconsistent with the Regulation definition and that the latter could, without straining its language, be construed consistently with the traditional and essential features of that agreement. Where the definition speaks of works a mine, it was argued that this should be understood as meaning works after the manner of the Tributer. Wells J. looked at the traditional role of a Tributer in relation to a mine and concluded that:- To call a man a Tributer says more about him than he pays to or receives from, the owner or lessor a proportion of the produce of the mine: the Tributer has always taken over the running of the mine or an identified part thereof; it is this that principally distinguishes him from the general run of independent contractors and employees who may be remunerated by a range of methods only limited by the imagination. In the view of Wells J. the traditional meaning of tributer is:- A miner who takes over the working of a mine, or of a specified portion of a mine in consideration of paying or receiving a proportion of the produce or of its equivalent value; sometimes the Tributer pays to the owners or lessors of the mine a proportion of the value of the ore won by the former; sometimes the owners or lessors return to the Tributer a proportion of the ore or its value in payment of his labour. Vol. 1I(1)

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