New Water Policy and Practice Volume 1, Number 2 - Spring 2015 | Page 78

Water Industry (Law) Reforms

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changing the water entitlement system,
facilitating water trading,
implementing water metering through a series of reforms,
recovering water resource management costs,
land and water planning for the longer-term protection of agricultural land,
increasing self-management of water resources,
investment in water use efficiency.

The WRIC noted with the release of the blueprint that additional information
and extensive public consultant was required in several areas before it can advise
the government. In 2006, with the WRIC recommendations in hand, the political
momentum shifted again, with WA Government introducing two new pieces of
legislation into the Western Australian parliament, a revision of the Water Services
Licensing Act 200520 and the Water Resources Legislation Amendment Bill 2005 (the
Bill)21. The Bill constituted the initial response with the establishment of a new DoW
on January 1, 2006, following on from the signing of the NWI on April 6, 2006 and
resulted in the abolition of the WRC.

The Bill assigns responsibility to the minister (for Water Resources) for
administering the Water Corporation Act 1995, under this arrangement the minister
is directly accountable for, approving the Water Corporation's strategic development
plan and the Water Corporation's statement of corporate intent; and for making
nominations to the board of the Water Corporation. This modification then ensured
that the objectives of the Water Corporation are consistent with the Government's
agenda on the management of the State’s water resources. The Bill gave the Minister
responsible for water functions and powers that were previously conferred on the WRC
in relation to the management of water resources under the Water Agencies (Powers)
Act 198422. Many of the administrative functions of the WRC were thus transferred to
the Chief Executive Officer of the DoW (Glindemann and Chung 2006). The reforms
instituted as part of the Bill inserted new ministerial powers into the Water Agencies
(Powers) Act23 to enable the Minister to initiate and direct actions into conserving,
protecting and managing water resources (Glindemann and Chung 2006).
20

The Water Services Licensing Act 2005 provides the regulatory framework for the water services industry including the licensing of water service providers (potable, non-potable, sewerage, irrigation or
drainage) by the ERA.
21
The Bill is the first step in the WA Government's plan to consolidate 14 water resources acts (including some very old pieces of legislation) into one streamlined Water Act, to be administered primarily
by the new DoW.
22
The Water Agencies (Powers) Act 1984 was amended by the Water Resources Legislation Amendment Act 2007 to enable the changes required to create the requisite ministerial powers, councils and
oversight.
23
Powers granted under amendments made to the Water Agencies (Powers) Act (see Pt. 2, D1, s9 (1-4))
under the Water Resources Legislation Amendment Act 2007 Pt. 6; 38 of 2007; December 21, 2007;
February 1, 2008 (see s. 2(2) and Gazette January 31, 2008 p. 251); [as at January 17, 2014].

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