This Act establishes an independent Natural Resources Access Regulator to improve accountability, transparency and effectiveness of water compliance and enforcement in the Barwon-Darling region and the state more broadly. The regulator will perform a role in putting in place new standards to ensure effectiveness and transparency of compliance activities at an individual, water-sharing plan and State level. The regulator will be led by an independent board, whose role is to determine whether the Government should institute proceedings for breaches of water legislation, and to have oversight of all water compliance. In order to give the regulator oversight, and to ensure independence from the customer service sensibility of a state-owned corporation, it is also proposed that compliance functions be moved from Water NSW to the regulator.
The regulator will be allocated a broad range of functions under natural resources management legislation including preparing strategies, policies and procedures relating to enforcement powers; advising and reporting to the Minister or any relevant Minister on any matter relating to administration of natural resources management legislation, or any other advice or reports as the Minister may request; publishing details of convictions and prosecutions for offences; and any other functions imposed through the regulations or by other legislation. The regulator will be the body that decides whether proceedings for any offence under natural resources management legislation should be instituted by the Crown.
The Act was drafted in response to the Matthews report, which was highly critical of aspects of water administration in NSW, particularly compliance and enforcement. The report highlighted the urgent need to address a number of issues to improve the accountability, transparency and performance of the compliance and enforcement framework and operations.
Enforcing water compliance in the Barwon-Darling basin will contribute to maintaining the health of the Murray-Darling River and increase the ability of Aboriginal groups to practise their rights on country.