New South Wales Consolidated Regulations

WATER SHARING PLAN FOR THE UPPER NAMOI AND LOWER NAMOI REGULATED RIVER WATER SOURCES 2003 - REG 53

53 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 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 environmental water, domestic and stock rights, native title rights and the reliability of supply to all other access licences in these water sources, and

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

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

Note: Clause 51 constraints apply to conversions also. This means that conversion of regulated river (general security) access licences to regulated river (high security) access licences cannot occur if the resulting high security licence would nominate works downstream of the Namoi River at Mollee Weir.

(4) 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 (3), and

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

Note: This 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.

(5) On application of the access licence holder, the Minister may cancel a domestic and stock access licence and issue a domestic and stock (domestic only) access licence and a domestic and stock (stock only) access licence, subject to:

(a) the sum of the share component volumes of the two new access licences being equal to the share component volume of the cancelled access licence, and

(b) the share component volume of the new domestic and stock (domestic only) access licence being able to meet the needs of domestic consumption as defined in section 52 of the Act.

(6) On application of the access licence holder, the Minister may cancel a domestic and stock (stock only) access licence and issue a regulated river (high security) access licence. The number of unit shares in the regulated river (high security) access licence share component shall be equal to the number of megalitres per year in the share component of the cancelled domestic and stock (stock only) access licence.