Page 2499 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 6 August 2013
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unauthorised activities. Enforcement actions can include a warning, a fine, a formal direction or a criminal prosecution.
The government is a signatory to the Council of Australian Governments program, the national framework for the compliance and enforcement systems for water resource management. This national framework requires the states and territories to use their best endeavours to introduce laws to adopt consistent offence provisions for best practice regulation of water resources. The ACT is committed to ensuring that a best practice regulatory system is available to protect our water resources. This bill, therefore, delivers on our commitment to adopt the COAG national framework.
The scope of that framework requires that the water resources laws of each state and territory address a set of compliance and enforcement criteria. For example, jurisdictions are required to ensure there are offence provisions in place for issues such as licensed water use, complying with licence conditions or the construction of bores. The Environment and Sustainable Development Directorate has reviewed the act and found that, for the most part, the criteria were already satisfied by the existing act. However, a small number of improvements were identified and they form the basis for this bill.
The bill proposes several technical amendments to the Water Resources Act and the associated regulation. While minor, they are important. The bill can be summarised as follows: improving interpretation of the requirement for ACT drillers licences and ACT bore licences; introducing two new strict liability offences for minor environmental crimes; providing an offence for tampering with a water meter; and requiring a person to hold a licence for the taking of water for roadworks, earthworks, construction or landscaping.
Turning to each of these amendments in more detail, the technical amendments at clauses 5 and 6 improve readability and interpretation of the requirement for an ACT drillers licence and an ACT bore work licence. The notes added to section 77B remove any ambiguity for interstate drillers operating in the ACT. The notes specifically refer the reader to the offence provision requirement to hold a valid drillers licence and bore work licence issued by the EPA prior to performing work.
The bill ensures the penalty levels for ACT water resource offences are proportional to the scale of water resource activity relative to other states and territories. Clauses 7 and 8 provide two new strict liability offences with infringement notice penalties as an alternative to existing criminal offences that carry larger penalties. This is in keeping with several existing minor offences for licence compliance that are already covered by strict liability offences.
Under Section 77C it is an offence if a person performs work in a waterway, such as the construction of a new dam or building a river crossing, without a licence. The licence ensures that appropriate planning permissions have been sought, approved access to the site obtained and, most importantly, due consideration has been given to work methods and environmental controls to minimise disturbance to the waterway.
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