New Water Policy and Practice Volume 1, Number 2 - Spring 2015 | Page 71

New Water Policy and Practice

thirdly, the introduction of water licences and ‘water entitlements’ that may be traded
separately from rights to the land.

These actions also paved the way to enable the adoption and implementation
of the Australian Drinking Water Guideline (ADWG) which to date had largely
been implemented as an ad hoc approach, since their introduction in 1972 (National
Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) and Natural Resource Management
Ministerial Council (NRMMC), 2003), with different states implementing the
recommendations at various stages in their government and regulatory cycles.
However the reforms, when combined with a shift or severe decline in rainfall (i.e.,
The Millennium Drought5 that occurred in the eastern states and the significant climate
shifts in WA); the drought although catastrophic in many areas,