New South Wales Consolidated Regulations

WATER SHARING PLAN FOR THE HUNTER REGULATED RIVER WATER SOURCE 2003 - REG 55

55 Rules for conversion of access licence category

(1) This clause relates to dealings under section 71O of the Act.

(2) Conversion of an access licence of one category to an access licence of another category is prohibited except as provided for under this clause.

(3) On application of the access licence holder, the Minister may cancel a major utility access licence and issue a regulated river (high security) access licence with a number of unit shares which is equivalent to the number of Ml/year of the cancelled access licence.

(4) A conversion under subclause (3) should only be permitted if the water provided by the access licence is no longer required for electricity generation purposes.

(5) On application of the access licence holder, the Minister may cancel a regulated river (general security) access licence or a regulated river (high security) access licence, and issue a major utility access licence subject to:

(a) the application of a conversion factor established by the Minister and published in an Order made under section 71Z of the Act that protects the environmental water, domestic and stock rights, native title rights and the reliability of supply to all other access licences in this water source, and

(b) the volume of water in the regulated river (general security) access licence or regulated river (high security) access licence water allocation account being equal to or greater than its share component volume.

Note: The volume of water in the regulated river (general security) access licence or regulated river (high security) access licence water allocation account which is in excess of the share component volume of the new regulated river (major utility) access licence will not be credited to the new regulated river (major utility) access licence water allocation account.

(6) On application of the access licence holder, the Minister may cancel a regulated river (general security) access licence, and issue a regulated river (high security) access licence, subject to:

(a) the application of a conversion factor established by the Minister and published in an Order made under section 71Z of the Act that protects the environmental water, domestic and stock rights, native title rights and the reliability of supply to all other access licences in this water source, and

Note: Assessments indicate that a conversion factor of 1/3 should be used, which would result in 1 Megalitre of regulated river (high security) access licence share component resulting from conversion of 3 Megalitres of regulated river (general security) access licence share component.

(b) the volume of water in the regulated river (general security) access licence water allocation account being equal to or greater than its share component volume.

Note: The volume of water in the regulated river (general security) access licence water allocation account which is in excess of the share component volume of the new regulated river (high security) access licence will not be credited to the new regulated river (high security) access licence water allocation account.

(7) On application of the access licence holder, the Minister may cancel a regulated river (high security) access licence, and issue a regulated river (general security) access licence, subject to:

(a) the application of a conversion factor equal to one divided by the conversion factor established in subclause (6), and

(b) the total volume of regulated river (general security) access licence share components not increasing above the volume of regulated river (general security) access licence share components at the time of commencement of Part 2 of Chapter 3 of the Act.

Note: This subclause would allow conversion of a regulated river (high security) access licence to a regulated river (general security) access licence only if there had been a corresponding or larger volume of regulated river (general security) access licence share component converted to regulated river (high security) access licence.