Commonwealth Numbered Acts

OFFSHORE MINERALS ACT 1994 No. 28, 1994 - SECT 13

13.(1) The Commonwealth-State offshore area for a State is the area that is
the adjacent area for the State for the purposes of the Petroleum (Submerged
Lands) Act 1967.
Note: The "adjacent area" for the purposes of the Petroleum (Submerged Lands) 
Act 1967 is worked out by taking an area off the coast of the State that is
described in Schedule 2 to that Act and then excluding all waters within a
line 3 nautical miles seaward of the territorial sea baseline and also
excluding any areas that are beyond the outer limits of the Continental Shelf.
The map in Schedule 2 to this Act illustrates the Commonwealth-State offshore
areas. The map is intended to show roughly the boundaries between the various
Commonwealth-State offshore areas and the outer limits of those areas
(sometimes the limits of the Continental Shelf, sometimes a bilaterally
negotiated boundary and sometimes an arbitrary median boundary adopted pending
bilateral negotiations).

(2) The following diagram illustrates how a Commonwealth-State offshore area
relates to:

   (a)  the territorial sea baseline; and

   (b)  the 3 nautical mile limit (the outer limit of the State's coastal
        waters); and

   (c)  the 12 nautical mile limit (the outer limit of the territorial sea);
        and

   (d)  the outer limits of the Continental Shelf.
Note 1: For the "baseline" see Australia's territorial sea baseline (AGPS)
1988: generally the baseline is the lowest astronomical tide along the coast
but it also includes lines enclosing bays and indentations that are not bays
and straight baselines that depart from the coast.
Note 2: The "Continental Shelf" in a legal sense starts not from the coast but
from the outer limits of the territorial sea. In a geophysical sense, of
course, the continental shelf starts at the coast. The diagram shows the outer
edge of the continental margin as the limit of the Continental Shelf but
sometimes the 200 nautical mile limit defines the limit of the Continental
Shelf. Note 3: Sometimes the outer limit of the
Commonwealth-State offshore area is a bilaterally negotiated boundary or a
median line adopted pending bilateral negotiations.