Water Management Amendment (Water Access Licence Register Reform) Act 2024
The NSW Parliament passed Water Management Amendment (Water Access Licence Register Reform) Act 2024 (the Act) in October 2024. The reforms in the Act provide important improvements to the transparency and operation of water markets and will be progressively rolled out across 2025-2026.
The Act includes four key reforms:
Water register improvements
Supporting Commonwealth water market reforms
Dispute resolution for Irrigation Corporations
Reporting of foreign beneficiaries of trusts which hold or co-hold water access licences
Further information will be provided on what these changes mean for stakeholders when the reforms are implemented.
1. Water register improvements
The Act makes two key changes. First, there is a new positive obligation on the Minister (or delegate) to keep the Water Access Licence Register up to date. While this is generally already done, the Act makes it a positive obligation to do so.
Second, the Act requires the Minister to make available a public water register. Much of the required content of this register is already available on the NSW Water Register on the WaterNSW website, and further upgrades and enhancements will be made in 2025 to the NSW Water Register to meet the requirements of the Act.
The public water register is not permitted to include personal information within the meaning of the Privacy and Personal Information Protection Act 1998, Part 6, or any other information prescribed by regulation
2. Supporting Commonwealth water market reforms
The NSW Government is working closely with the Australian and other Murray-Darling Basin State governments to implement water market reforms, in response to an earlier inquiry undertaken by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission into the operation of water markets.
The Act includes provisions that will support the implementation of these reforms in NSW.
In 2025, we anticipate that the Australian Government will finalise a Water Market Intermediaries Code. This is intended to be adopted in NSW as the Code of Conduct for Brokers required under the Act.
In 2026, most of the data and system reforms under the Australian Government’s program are expected to be adopted. At this time, we will consider the regulations required to adopt the necessary framework of unique identifiers as set out in the Act.
3. Dispute resolution for Irrigation Corporations
The Act requires that a condition of the operating licences of statutory Irrigation Corporations include that they must be a member of a dispute resolution organisation.
This will require considerable consultation with Irrigation Corporations as well as potential dispute resolution organisations through 2025.
4. Reporting of foreign beneficiaries of trusts which hold or co-hold water access licences
The Act will require that trusts (through the people who act as trustees) report annually to the Minister for Water the name and contact details of foreign persons who are beneficiaries of the trust.
This reporting is required within 2 months of the end of each financial year, and is intended to commence at the end of the current financial year, with a reporting mechanism planned to be introduced during the 2025-26 financial year.
Information collected by the Minister about foreign beneficiaries will be included in the public water register subject to restrictions in the Act (for example the public water register is not permitted to include personal information).