Tasmania’s Resources Minister Guy Barnett has blamed a lodging error for his incorrect granting of a lease to a Chinese owned mining company at the site of a contentious mining proposal. Chinese-owned company MMG was granted the lease on an access track in the state’s northwest, near where it wants to build a new heavy metals tailings dam. Barnett in a letter sent to the Bob Brown Foundation, a Tasmanian conservation group, which has stridently opposed the dam, told the Foundation he was not empowered to make the decision. “Following due consideration, I was not empowered to make the decision,” the letter, dated September 24, reads. “In consequence, there has been no valid grant of that lease. MMG has been informed.” The Bob Brown Foundation claims the lease was granted with the goal of shutting down protests. “This was an attempt to … lock the community out of an area …