Water Bill Exposure Draft

What does it mean to you?

DR ELIZABETH GIBSON, General Manager, CMPA provides an update on the Water Bill Exposure Draft.

tHE victorian Government is reviewing the Water Act 1989
and the Water Industry Act 1994 to deliver a “streamlined
and effective legislative framework for water management
and use in Victoria”. The objectives being that:

• Provides for integrated and sustainable water management and use in Victoria
• Implements government policy be enabling elements of the Living Victoria policy and certain actions from the Gippsland region and Western region sustainable water strategies
• Facilitates Victoria’s compliance with the Murray Darling Basin Plan while maintaining the integrity of Victoria’s entitlement regime.

The Government intends to introduce the finalised Water Bill to Parliament in 2014 with a proposed commencement date of 1 January, 2016. CMPA made a submission with the closure date on 14 February, 2014.

Comments were submitted on the Water Bill Exposure Draft – an explanatory guide to the office of Living Victoria. The legislation itself is over 600 pages long.

WATER BILL EXPOSURE DRAFT – AN EXPLANATORY GUIDE
Overview of the Water Bill Exposure Draft:

The Exposure Draft (p.4) proposes to retain the best elements of the past two decades of water reform, clarifying or refining them where required and removing or adding elements in line with contemporary water, legislative practice and stakeholder feedback.

Many of the changes to be made in the Water Bill Exposure Draft are said to expect to reduce administrative burden on water corporations and catchment management authorities. to which CMPA responded “there appears to be little focus on reducing red tape and administrative burdens for all water users”.

Living Victoria

The Exposure Draft proposes to enable elements (p.5) of the Victorian Government’s Living Victoria policy and the forthcoming Melbourne’s Water Future Strategy; for example, updating the objects of the Water Act 1989 to include the promotion of whole of water cycle management.

To which CMPA responded, “Consideration has not been given to the issue that the cost of measurement of the water cycle for the extractive industry (if this is the proposal) may be greater than the cost of the water”.

Taking and using water

Managing water (p.17) impacts of new forestry plantations. It is proposed that the Minister will be empowered to manage long-term risks to water resources from new forestry plantations in declared forest plantation areas.

The proposed controls will only apply to new forest plantations larger than an allowable plantation area. Forest plantations will include timber, pulp, carbon and bio-fuel plantations and large environmental and farm forestry plantings.

The managers of the new forest plantations that are larger than this plantation area will need to obtain a take and use licence and/or an offset area approval for the additional water they will intercept.

To which CMPA responded, “This could be read as a new impost on the extractive industries when rehabilitating sites with the requirement for a take and use licence for tree plantations that exceed 20 hectares or 10 per cent of all land when the definition of a tree plantation includes environmental plantings”.

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