New South Wales Consolidated Acts

WATER MANAGEMENT ACT 2000 - SECT 52

52 Domestic and stock rights

(1) Subject to subsection (2), an owner or occupier of a landholding is entitled, without the need for an access licence, water supply work approval or water use approval:

(a) to take water from any river, estuary or lake to which the land has frontage or from any aquifer underlying the land, and

(b) to construct and use a water supply work for that purpose, and

(c) to use the water so taken for domestic consumption and stock watering, but not for any other purpose.

(2) Subsection (1) does not allow a landholder:

(a) to take or use water in contravention of any mandatory guidelines established under section 336B, or

(b) to construct a dam or water bore without a water supply work approval, or

(c) in the case of the owner or occupier of a landholding arising from a subdivision effected on or after 1 July 2004, to take or use water in contravention of any prohibition or restriction imposed by or under the regulations (including any prohibition or restriction that the Minister is authorised by the regulations to impose).

(3) In this section:
"domestic consumption", in relation to land, means consumption for normal household purposes in domestic premises situated on the land.
"stock watering", in relation to land, means the watering of stock animals being raised on the land, but does not include the use of water in connection with the raising of stock animals on an intensive commercial basis that are housed or kept in feedlots or buildings for all (or a substantial part) of the period during which the stock animals are being raised.