In the late 1990s Wambo Coal Pty Ltd built a conveyor on land which was within a mine subsidence district as proclaimed under the Mine Subsidence Compensation Act 1961 (NSW). A few years later it discovered United Collieries Pty Limited wanted to mine under the conveyor, which would cause subsidence and inevitably damage the conveyor. Wambo therefore decided to move the conveyor. The relocation cost nearly $600,000. The subsidence then occurred, in areas which were reasonably similar to those which Wambo predicted.
Wambo then went to the Mine Subsidence Board for compensation under the Act, but the Board rejected the claim.
The central issue was one of timing. The Act provides for compensation for expense incurred in preventing or mitigating reasonably anticipated damage to improvements when a subsidence has occurred. But is it necessary to have some subsidence before the expense was incurred? Or can a claimant still be compensated for expense incurred before any subsidence has
