River Murray Regulations 2017

The regulations operationalise a handful of central regulatory concepts that the River Murray Act 2003 requires or contemplates. Those concepts are: territorial designation, prescribed consultation, warrant procedure, referral and notice for related statutory instruments, prescribed circumstances for emergency action, a formulaic interest rate, and specification of the Minister’s principal office.

Territorial designation: Regulation 4 designates two River Murray Protection Areas by reference to a deposited plan (General Registry Office No 440/2003) and names the areas (the River Murray Floodplain Area and the River Murray Tributaries Area). This is a geometric-to-legal link: the plan is the operative instrument that defines the protection areas for the purposes of the Act and any other Act (r 4(1)-(2)). The regulations do not reproduce the map in-line; instead they refer users to Schedule 1 and the deposited plan.

Prescribed consultation: Regulation 5 identifies which external bodies the Minister must consult under s 9(2)(a) of the Act and sets out the specific circumstances triggering that consultation. The list of prescribed bodies is a discrete set of public, natural-resources, local-government and Aboriginal/Nnative-title interests (r 5(1)(a)). The circumstances requiring consultation are: during a review of the Implementation Strategy, when proposing a change to a River Murray Protection Area, and when proposing a change to the referrals to the Minister under Schedule 8 of the Development Regulations 2008 (r 5(1)(b)). The regulation also narrows the consultative pool to only three local government associations when the Minister is proposing changes to the Schedule 8 referrals (r 5(2)). This creates a sliding scope of consultation depending on the subject matter.

Warrant procedure: Regulation 6 prescribes evidentiary and procedural rules for applications for warrants under s 14 of the Act. It requires that grounds of applications made personally must be verified by affidavit (r 6(1)). It sets step-by-step rules where applications are made by telephone, including identity and position disclosure by the applicant, the magistrate’s ability to assume the applicant’s position on the information given, the magistrate’s obligation to inform the applicant of the magistrate’s view of the facts justifying issuance, and the requirement that the applicant undertake to provide an affidavit verifying those facts before a warrant will issue (r 6(2)(a)-(g)). It also imposes a filing obligation on the magistrate to file the warrant and the verifying affidavit in the Magistrates Court (r 6(3)).

Referral and notice: Regulation 7 prescribes that a plan of management under s 38 of the National Parks and Wildlife Act 1972 relating to a reserve wholly or partly in the Murray-Darling Basin is a statutory instrument of a prescribed class and must be referred to the Minister under s 22 of the River Murray Act before public consultation begins under the NPW Act (r 7). Regulation 8 requires that any notice issued under s 22(6) be served on both the applicant for the statutory authorisation and the authority to whom the application was made, and that it specify the extension period (r 8(a)-(b)).

Emergency and interest-rate concepts: Regulation 9 captures “prescribed circumstances” broadly by designating any circumstance involving the exercise of a statutory power by a public authority in an emergency situation as prescribed for s 23(3) (r 9). Regulation 10 converts references to “the prescribed rate of interest” in ss 25, 27 and 28 of the Act into a formula: the prime bank rate for the relevant financial year, defined by reference to the Commonwealth Bank of Australia corporate loan reference rate on the first trading day of that financial year (r 10(1)-(2)). Finally, regulation 11 specifies the principal office of the Minister’s department for s 41(2)(a) (r 11), which ties administrative notices and service rules to a specific office location.

Collectively these concepts convert legislative default phrases in the Act , such as “prescribed”, “principal office”, “prescribed rate of interest” and certain procedural steps , into concrete prescriptions. The regulations are largely technical and administrative, affecting timing, parties to be notified or consulted, evidentiary form and the monetary metric for interest. The rules adjust who is involved in decision-making and when, fix a bank-derived interest benchmark that will move annually, and create procedural safeguards and record-keeping requirements around warrants.

The regulations affect a defined set of actors by name and by role. Primary actors directly affected include the Minister and the Minister’s department, magistrates and applicants for warrants, creators and amendors of plans of management under the National Parks and Wildlife Act 1972 that relate to reserves in the Murray-Darling Basin, prescribed external bodies required to be consulted, public authorities exercising statutory powers in emergency situations, applicants for statutory authorisations and the authorities to whom they apply, and any person or entity with unpaid amounts to the Minister under ss 25, 27 or 28 of the Act.

Minister and Minister’s department: The Minister gains prescribed duties relating to consultation (r 5), receiving referrals of certain statutory instruments (r 7), issuing notices of extension (r 8), and defining the principal office for service (r 11). The Minister’s department is identified as having a specified principal office (r 11). These functions place administrative, decision-making and record-keeping obligations on that office.

Magistrates and warrant applicants: Regulation 6 imposes procedural duties on magistrates (for example, to inform the applicant of the magistrate’s view of the facts and to file warrants and affidavits in the Magistrates Court (r 6(2)(c)-(d), r 6(3))). Applicants for warrants, whether acting in an official capacity or otherwise under the Act, must verify grounds by affidavit for personal applications (r 6(1)), or, in the telephone context, provide identity and position information, state purpose and grounds, undertake to lodge an affidavit and then promptly lodge it (r 6(2)(a)-(g)). The magistrate is explicitly entitled to assume the applicant holds the stated position on the information provided (r 6(2)(a)).

Prescribed consulted bodies: Regulation 5 names particular organisations that the Minister must consult under s 9(2)(a) of the Act. Those bodies are the Local Government Association of South Australia; Murray and Mallee Local Government Association; Southern and Hills Local Government Association; South Australian Murray Darling Basin Natural Resources Management Board; State Aboriginal Heritage Committee; Aboriginal Legal Rights Movement Inc.; South Australian Native Title Services; and the South East Natural Resources Management Board (r 5(1)(a)). The obligation to consult these bodies imposes participatory rights on them and administrative burden to respond when consultation is triggered under the circumstances listed in r 5(1)(b).

Plan preparers and custodians under the National Parks and Wildlife Act 1972: Entities preparing or amending plans of management for reserves within the Murray-Darling Basin must refer the draft plan to the Minister under s 22 of the River Murray Act before commencing public consultation under s 38(3) of the NPW Act (r 7). This adds an upstream procedural step for plan-makers and changes the timing of Ministerial engagement.

Applicants for statutory authorisations and recipient authorities: Where the Minister extends time under s 22(6), the regulations require notices to be served on both the applicant and the authority to whom the application was made (r 8(a)(i)-(ii)). That imposes an obligation on the Minister to serve notice on those two classes of people and gives both parties information about the extension and its period (r 8(b)).

Persons owing unpaid amounts under ss 25, 27 and 28 of the Act: Such persons are affected by the interest calculation method fixed by regulation 10, which ties the prescribed rate to the Commonwealth Bank of Australia corporate loan reference rate on the first trading day of the relevant financial year (r 10(1)-(2)). This creates a financial cost for non-payment that varies annually with the specified bank rate.

Wider public and third parties: The revocation of the River Murray Regulations 2003 by Schedule 2 means anyone who previously relied on the 2003 regulations must now operate under the 2017 regulations (Schedule 2). Also, the deposited plan referenced in r 4 and the map in Schedule 1 have effect for all parties looking to determine whether a location sits within a River Murray Protection Area. The regulations, though administrative, change who needs to be consulted or notified and the timing of several procedural steps, affecting the workflows of local government associations, Aboriginal and native title representative organisations, natural resource boards and plan preparers.

The regulations create a limited number of explicit duties and reciprocally grant rights that follow from those duties. Most duties are administrative or procedural and attach either to the Minister, the Minister’s department, magistrates, applicants for warrants, plan preparers, or to persons who must be served with notices.

Duties of the Minister and Minister’s department:

• Consult prescribed bodies in the circumstances listed in r 5(1)(b), which the regulation treats as the Minister’s duty under s 9(2)(a) of the Act. The list of consultable bodies is prescribed at r 5(1)(a); if the Minister is proposing changes to the referrals under Schedule 8 of the Development Regulations 2008, consultative duty is limited to the three specified LGAs (r 5(2)).
• Receive referrals of plans of management prepared under s 38 of the National Parks and Wildlife Act 1972 that relate to reserves in the Murray-Darling Basin, before those plans proceed to public consultation (r 7). This duty is procedural and must occur at the plan-preparation or amendment stage.
• Serve notices of extension under s 22(6) on both the applicant for the statutory authorisation and the authority to whom the application was made, and to specify the period of the extension (r 8).
• Maintain and identify the Minister’s principal office for service and administrative purposes (r 11).

Duties on magistrates and procedural obligations on applicants for warrants:

• For personal applications for warrants under s 14 of the Act, applicants must verify the grounds by affidavit (r 6(1)).
• If an application is made by telephone, the applicant must disclose name and position, purpose and grounds, and must undertake to produce a verifying affidavit; the magistrate must inform the applicant of the magistrate’s opinion of the facts justifying issuance and must not issue the warrant unless the applicant undertakes to provide the affidavit (r 6(2)(a)-(c)). Upon receipt of the undertaking the magistrate may sign a warrant and must note the facts that justify it in the magistrate's opinion (r 6(2)(d)-(e)). The applicant must forward the verifying affidavit to the magistrate as soon as practicable after issue of the warrant (r 6(2)(g)). The magistrate must file the warrant and the affidavit in the Magistrates Court (r 6(3)).
• The magistrate is entitled to assume, without further inquiry, that the applicant holds the position the applicant claims for the purposes of the Act upon being informed of that position (r 6(2)(a)).

Rights or entitlements created:

• Prescribed consulted bodies are given the statutory status of consultees in the specified circumstances (r 5(1)), which affords them the right to be consulted under the statutory process in those circumstances.
• Applicants for statutory authorisations and the authority to whom an application is made have the right to be served with notice of any extension of time under s 22(6), and to be told the period of extension (r 8).
• Plan preparers have the right to a referral to the Minister before undertaking public consultation when their draft plan concerns a reserve that is wholly or partly within the Murray-Darling Basin; conversely, the Minister has the right to be consulted prior to public consultation (r 7).
• Persons with unpaid amounts that fall within ss 25, 27 and 28 of the Act have a clear, formula-based measure of the interest rate that will apply to those unpaid amounts; the regulation prescribes both the metric and the time point used to fix it (r 10(1)-(2)).

Other duties implicit in the provisions:

• Entities that prepare or amend plans of management under the NPW Act must incorporate an additional step into their process, namely referral to the Minister under the River Murray Act before public consultation (r 7). This creates a timing duty not directly stated in the NPW Act but required by these regulations.
• Those who apply for warrants or those who use telephone channels for urgent warrant applications face a duty to ensure that an affidavit verifying the grounds follows promptly after a telephone undertaking, and a magistrate faces the duty to file both documents in court (r 6(2)(g), r 6(3)).

These duties, while largely procedural, allocate who must act and when. The regulations do not create new criminal offences or penalties themselves; they specify how existing powers and obligations under the Act and related Acts are to be exercised and documented.

The regulations themselves do not create new standalone criminal penalties. They primarily prescribe procedural mechanisms that support enforcement and administration under the River Murray Act 2003 and other Acts referenced. Enforcement-related content in the regulations is therefore indirect: it standardises procedures for warrants, interest calculation, referrals, notice and consultation that underpin the Act’s substantive enforcement pathways.

Warrant procedure and record-keeping (r 6): The regulations set out evidentiary procedures for obtaining and documenting warrants under s 14 of the Act. They require verification by affidavit for personal applications (r 6(1)), impose particular steps for telephone applications (r 6(2)(a)-(g)), and require the magistrate to file the warrant and affidavit in the Magistrates Court (r 6(3)). These steps create an administrative record and documentary trail that enforcement agencies, courts and scrutinising parties can use in any subsequent enforcement action or judicial review. The regulations do not say which enforcement measures follow a proper or improper exercise of a warrant power; that remains governed by the Act and relevant procedural law. The requirement of affidavit verification and court filing increases the available evidence against which lawfulness can be judged.

Interest on unpaid amounts (r 10): Regulation 10 prescribes the method for calculating statutory interest for unpaid amounts under ss 25, 27 and 28 of the Act. By fixing the prescribed rate of interest to the Commonwealth Bank of Australia corporate loan reference rate on the first trading day of each financial year (r 10(1)-(2)), the regulations determine the monetary penalty for non-payment under those sections. The regulation thus determines the cost imposed on debtors under the Act but does not create separate enforcement mechanisms; recovery and enforcement of unpaid amounts would proceed under the Act and applicable debt-recovery mechanisms.

Referral and notice obligations (r 7-8): The referral requirement in r 7 makes a plan of management under the NPW Act a statutory instrument of a prescribed class that must be referred to the Minister before public consultation. Failure to comply with this referral requirement could affect the validity of subsequent processes tied to the plan, although the regulations do not themselves state the legal consequences for non-compliance; those consequences would derive from the River Murray Act 2003 and the NPW Act 1972. Regulation 8 prescribes the persons who must receive notice under s 22(6) and what the notice must include; such notice obligations feed into procedural fairness and administrative law considerations that, if breached, may be relied upon in judicial review or other proceedings.

Emergency circumstances (r 9): By deeming any exercise of a statutory power by a public authority in an emergency situation as a prescribed circumstance for s 23(3), the regulation clarifies when certain powers or procedures can be invoked. This affects the circumstances in which expedited or exceptional measures are authorised under the Act; enforcement actions taken in emergency circumstances will be judged against the emergency prescription.

Revocation of prior regulations (Schedule 2): The revocation of the River Murray Regulations 2003 means enforcement under the Act will rely on the 2017 regulations’ provisions from their commencement date onwards. Schedule 2 does not itself specify transitional enforcement arrangements; those would be contained in the principal instrument or other transitional provisions if present in the source.

In short, enforcement and penalty mechanisms remain primarily those in the River Murray Act 2003 and other statutes referred to. The regulations supply procedural precision and monetary specification (interest rate) that affect the magnitude and transparency of enforcement, and they create administrative records (warrant affidavits, filed documents, referral receipts, served notices) that are material to subsequent enforcement actions or judicial review. The regulations do not list fines, imprisonment terms or other sanctions within their text.

The regulations operate as subordinate legislation to the River Murray Act 2003 and deliberately interface with several other legislative instruments and statutory regimes.

River Murray Act 2003: Each regulation is made to operationalise a particular provision of the River Murray Act. The regulations refer repeatedly to specified sections of the Act: r 4 implements s 4 designation of River Murray Protection Areas; r 5 implements consultation under s 9(2)(a); r 6 gives detail for warrant applications under s 14(7); r 7 is made pursuant to s 22(2); r 8 concerns notices under s 22(6); r 9 prescribes circumstances for s 23(3); r 10 prescribes interest rates for ss 25, 27 and 28; and r 11 specifies the Minister’s principal office for s 41(2)(a). The regulations thus fill in the Act’s references to “prescribed” elements and procedural steps.

National Parks and Wildlife Act 1972: Regulation 7 expressly connects the NPW Act and the River Murray Act. It declares that a plan of management under s 38 of the NPW Act for a reserve wholly or partly within the Murray-Darling Basin is a statutory instrument of a prescribed class for the River Murray Act and must be referred to the Minister under s 22 prior to public consultation under s 38(3) of the NPW Act. This imposes an additional interlocking step on plan-makers under the NPW Act: before public consultation under the NPW Act can be commenced, referral to the River Murray Minister must occur. Thus, the regulations add a cross-act procedural prerequisite for plans that touch the Murray-Darling Basin.

Development Regulations 2008: Regulation 5(1)(b)(iii) specifies that one of the circumstances in which consultation is required under s 9(2)(a) is if the Minister proposes a change to the referrals to the Minister under Schedule 8 of the Development Regulations 2008. The regulations interact with the Development Regulations by making a change in the referral structure under those Development Regulations a trigger for consultation under the River Murray Act. Furthermore, r 5(2) narrows the consultative bodies for changes to those Schedule 8 referrals, which changes the inter-regulatory relationship by limiting consultation scope.

Subordinate Legislation Act 1978: The commencement mechanism in r 2 expressly refers to the Subordinate Legislation Act 1978 s 10AA for the four-month delay in operation after the regulations are made. The Legislative history supplied in the regulations also ties the Gazette entry and the commencement date back to that authoritative mechanism.

Magistrates Court procedure and administrative law: Regulation 6 requires warrants and affidavits to be filed in the Magistrates Court (r 6(3)), linking the River Murray Act warrant process with Magisterial records and subsequent court-based procedures. The procedural steps and notices prescribed (r 6, r 8) intersect with administrative law principles of procedural fairness because they define who must be consulted or served with notice and when.

Revocation of prior subordinate legislation: Schedule 2 revokes the River Murray Regulations 2003 and thus replaces the earlier subordinate instrument. Any interaction between the 2003 regulations and other laws is therefore superseded by the 2017 regulations from their commencement date (Schedule 2).

In sum, the regulations function as connectors and procedural modulators across several statutory regimes. They prescribe how the River Murray Act’s references to “prescribed” elements are to be interpreted when dealing with plans under the NPW Act, referral arrangements under the Development Regulations, the procedural framework for warrants and notices, and the administrative starting point for subdelegations and service via the Minister’s principal office. Practitioners must read these regulations in tandem with the River Murray Act 2003 and the other Acts mentioned to understand the complete statutory path for referrals, consultation, warrant issuance and interest calculation.

The regulations themselves contain a short legislative history and an express revocation of the earlier subordinate instrument. The materials provided show the following timeline and changes:

• Repeal and replacement: Schedule 2 of the River Murray Regulations 2017 expressly revokes the River Murray Regulations 2003. The 2017 instrument therefore displaces the 2003 regulations on the matters covered by the new regulations (Schedule 2).

• Commencement: The regulations were published in the Gazette (Gazette reference: 22.8.2017 p 3708) and, pursuant to regulation 2 and the Subordinate Legislation Act 1978 s 10AA, came into operation four months after the day on which they were made. The Legislative history notes a commencement date of 22.12.2017 (r 2; Legislative history).

• Principal regulations entry: The Legislative history section identifies the 2017 regulations as Principal regulations, Year 2017, No 260, Gazette 22.8.2017 p 3708, and records the commencement mechanism as regulation 2 with the specific commencement date (Legislative history).

The regulations do not list any subsequent amendments to the 2017 instrument within the text provided. No schedules or sub-schedules in the source show amendments following the initial making and commencement. Therefore, based on the document supplied, the only substantive change recorded is the revocation of the 2003 regulations and replacement by the 2017 instrument, with the 2017 instrument entering force on the date stated in the Legislative history.

Practitioners should note that the regulations themselves incorporate references to other instruments (for example, the Development Regulations 2008, Schedule 8) that may change independently. The regulations’ effect therefore depends both on their own text and on amendments to the upstream Acts and Regulations they reference. The 2017 regulations do not contain transitional provisions in the text provided here; if transitional arrangements were required, they would need to be located in the 2017 instrument itself or in amending instruments or in the parent Act.

No further amendment entries or incremental change logs are included in the supplied text. The record supplied is limited to the making and commencement entries for 2017 and the explicit revocation of the 2003 regulations.

The text of the River Murray Regulations 2017 supplied here does not record any litigation history. There are no case names, reported decisions, or judicial determinations quoted or summarised in the regulations or in the legislative history sections provided. The instrument records administrative facts about its making, Gazette publication and commencement and revocation of the earlier 2003 regulations; it does not include references to court challenges or judicial interpretation.

Although the source contains no litigation entries, several provisions in the regulations establish procedural steps and documentary records that are commonly the subject of judicial scrutiny in administrative-law or enforcement proceedings. For example:

• The telephone warrant process (r 6(2)) requires an applicant to give an undertaking to file an affidavit verifying facts and obliges the magistrate to note the magistrate’s opinion of the facts on the warrant and to file the warrant and affidavit in the Magistrates Court (r 6(2)(c)-(d), r 6(3)). Those documentary steps generate a court record that could be examined in litigation about the lawfulness of warrant issuance or the legality of actions taken under a warrant.
• The consultation obligations (r 5) and referral obligations (r 7) create procedural requirements that, if not observed, could be the basis for judicial review in the nature of certiorari or declaration proceedings where an interested party alleges procedural unlawfulness, failure to consult required parties, or breach of statutory duty. The regulations themselves do not prescribe remedies for failures to comply with the consultation or referral steps; such remedies would be determined by the parent statute and general administrative law principles.
• The specification of the interest rate (r 10) is formulaic and could be the subject of disputes over calculation or applicability to particular unpaid amounts under ss 25, 27 and 28 of the Act.

None of these potential litigation hooks are the subject of reported decisions cited in the regulations. Practitioners should therefore treat the absence of litigation references in this instrument as absence of included case law, not as evidence that the provisions are immune from challenge. Any actual litigation history would need to be sourced from case law databases, court records or decisions, none of which appear in the text provided.

If parties anticipate disputes about evidence, administrative procedure, consultation scope or interest calculations under the River Murray Act framework, the documentary and procedural prescriptions in these regulations will be central to any court review, but the regulations themselves do not provide judicial outcomes or precedent.

The regulations are compact but contain a number of technical features and procedural asymmetries that can have practical consequences. The following are concrete items to watch for; each point is tied to specific provisions of the regulations.

1. Reliance on a deposited plan rather than embedded coordinates (r 4): Regulation 4 designates the two River Murray Protection Areas by reference to a plan deposited in the General Registry Office (No 440/2003) and a map in Schedule 1. The regulations do not reproduce coordinates or textual boundary descriptions. Parties must locate and rely on the deposited plan or the Schedule 1 map to determine whether land falls inside a protection area. Failure to check the deposited plan could lead to mistaken assumptions about applicability.

2. Narrowed consultation when Schedule 8 referrals are in play (r 5(2)): Regulation 5(1) prescribes an extensive list of consultees. However, if the Minister is proposing changes to the referrals under Schedule 8 of the Development Regulations 2008, regulation 5(2) reduces the prescribed consultees to three local government associations (r 5(2)). That narrowing is specific and may surprise stakeholders who would otherwise expect to be consulted on changes affecting referrals in planning instruments. Consulted organisations outside the three LGAs will not be regarded as prescribed consultees in that circumstance.

3. Magistrate’s entitlement to assume position (r 6(2)(a)): In telephone warrant applications, the magistrate is “entitled to assume, without further inquiry, that the applicant holds that position” once informed (r 6(2)(a)). This is an evidentiary shortcut that places reliance on the applicant’s representation; a later discovery that the applicant was not in the position claimed could complicate the lawfulness of the warrant and actions taken under it. Applicants should therefore be cautious to ensure accurate position statements when calling magistrates.

4. Timing pressure after telephone warrants (r 6(2)(g)): If a warrant issues after a telephone undertaking, the applicant must, “as soon as practicable after the issue of the warrant”, forward an affidavit verifying the facts (r 6(2)(g)). What counts as “as soon as practicable” is variable and could create vulnerability if the affidavit is delayed; magistrates must file the affidavit (r 6(3)), and late affidavits may raise issues in subsequent legal challenges.

5. Filing obligation creates a public court record (r 6(3)): The magistrate must file the warrant and verifying affidavit in the Magistrates Court (r 6(3)). That filing creates a public record that may be discoverable in litigation. Practitioners should anticipate that the court file will be evidence in administrative-law or criminal-law proceedings arising from executed warrants.

6. Broad “emergency” prescription (r 9): Regulation 9 prescribes “any circumstance involving the exercise of a statutory power by a public authority in an emergency situation” as a prescribed circumstance for s 23(3) (r 9). The term “any circumstance” combined with “emergency situation” is broad and may generate differing views about scope; relying agencies and affected persons should document the factual basis for invoking an emergency classification to reduce contestability.

7. Annual interest benchmark tied to a bank rate on a specific day (r 10): The prescribed rate of interest for unpaid amounts is defined as the Commonwealth Bank of Australia corporate loan reference rate on the first trading day of the financial year (r 10(1)-(2)). This introduces two features that can be surprising: (a) the rate is bank-specific rather than a statutory or central-bank benchmark; and (b) it is fixed by reference to a single day per financial year. Practitioners need to identify and document the bank’s corporate loan reference rate on that date for each financial year in which amounts remain unpaid.

8. Referral before public consultation (r 7): Regulation 7 requires plans of management under s 38 NPW Act that relate to reserves in the Murray-Darling Basin to be referred to the River Murray Minister before public consultation begins (r 7). Plan drafters who commence public consultation without that referral risk procedural invalidity or administrative challenge, because a statutorily required step may have been bypassed.

9. Notice service obligations (r 8): A notice under s 22(6) must be served both on the applicant for the statutory authorisation and the authority to whom the application was made, and must specify the period of the extension (r 8). Omitting either addressee or the period of extension could render notice defective and provide grounds for dispute.

10. Revocation of prior regulations (Schedule 2): The 2003 regulations are revoked (Schedule 2). Entities used to relying on the 2003 instrument must not assume the old processes continue. Transitional arrangements, if any, are not contained in the supplied text; practitioners should verify whether transitional provisions exist elsewhere.

In practice, these features mean that practitioners should not assume standard administrative behaviours will apply: consultation scope can be narrower than it appears in some situations; telephone warrants carry both expedited issuance and strict post-issue documentary duties; interest is calculated by reference to a bank rate on a defined day; and a deposited plan rather than an in-text description governs protection-area boundaries. Each of these points creates potential procedural risk if overlooked.

Compliance under these regulations is largely about embedding the specified procedural steps into administrative workflows, keeping precise records, and consulting the correct parties at the correct time. The following practical checklist translates the regulations into concrete compliance steps, with citations to the relevant regulation numbers.

1. Establish and consult the deposited plan for protection-area boundaries (r 4)

• Locate the plan deposited in the General Registry Office No 440/2003 and the Schedule 1 map to determine whether a site falls within the River Murray Floodplain Area or River Murray Tributaries Area (r 4(1)-(2)). Do not rely on informal maps or assumptions.
• Update property, project and planning assessments to flag whether the land lies within those designated areas, and ensure any subsequent approvals or referrals reference the deposited plan.

2. Follow the consultation prescription when the Minister’s functions are in play (r 5)

• If acting for the Minister or advising the Minister, ensure that, when undertaking a review of the Implementation Strategy, proposing a change to a River Murray Protection Area, or proposing a change to the referrals under Schedule 8 of the Development Regulations 2008, the list of prescribed consultees in r 5(1)(a) is engaged.
• When changes concern Schedule 8 referrals specifically, limit consultative obligations to the three local government associations listed in r 5(2). Prepare targeted consultation materials for those LGAs and document the consultation steps taken.

3. Implement warrant application procedures and record-keeping (r 6)

• For warrant applications made in person, require that the applicant provide a sworn affidavit verifying the grounds (r 6(1)). Make that an explicit intake step.
• For telephone applications, train officers to collect and record the applicant’s name and position, the purpose and grounds, and the applicant’s undertaking to provide a verifying affidavit. Ensure the magistrate’s office records the magistrate’s expressed facts justifying the warrant on the warrant itself and files both the warrant and subsequent affidavit in the Magistrates Court (r 6(2)(a)-(g), r 6(3)).
• Create a timeframe policy to ensure affidavits are forwarded “as soon as practicable” after a telephone-issued warrant (r 6(2)(g)) and document reasons for any delay.

4. Refer plans of management under NPW Act before public consultation (r 7)

• If preparing or amending a plan of management under s 38 of the National Parks and Wildlife Act 1972 that concerns a reserve wholly or partly within the Murray-Darling Basin, refer the plan to the Minister under s 22 of the River Murray Act before commencing public consultation under s 38(3) of the NPW Act (r 7).
• Embed this referral step in plan drafting checklists and require evidence of referral before any public consultation launch.

5. Serve notices of extension correctly (r 8)

• When an extension is granted under s 22(6), ensure that the notice is served on both the person who applied for the relevant statutory authorisation and the authority to whom the application was made under the related operational Act (r 8(a)(i)-(ii)), and specify the extension period (r 8(b)). Keep delivery receipts and service records.

6. Document emergency circumstances when invoking prescribed emergency powers (r 9)

• Where a public authority exercises a statutory power in an emergency situation, document the factual basis for calling it an emergency, because r 9 designates any such circumstance as a prescribed circumstance for s 23(3) (r 9). Contemporaneous records will support the exercise of emergency powers in later review.

7. Calculate interest under the prescribed formula (r 10)

• For unpaid amounts falling under ss 25, 27 and 28 of the Act, apply the prescribed rate of interest per annum equal to the Commonwealth Bank of Australia corporate loan reference rate for corporate lending on the first trading day of the financial year in which the amount remains unpaid (r 10(1)-(2)). Maintain an annual schedule documenting the CBA rate on the first trading day of each financial year and use that documented rate in arrears calculations.
• Ensure invoicing, debtor notices and internal debt-recovery procedures reference the correct annual rate.

8. Use the specified principal office for service and administrative steps (r 11)

• Where the Act requires reference to the Minister’s principal office (s 41(2)(a)), use the office specified by regulation 11 (r 11). Ensure service and filing templates reflect that specified office.

9. Adjust for the revocation of the 2003 regulations (Schedule 2)

• Remove any procedural templates, references or forms that relied on the River Murray Regulations 2003 and replace them with processes aligned to the 2017 regulations (Schedule 2).
• Communicate the change to internal teams and external stakeholders who previously relied on the 2003 instrument.

10. Maintain documentary trails for every prescribed step

• For consultations (r 5), referrals (r 7), notices (r 8), affidavit verifications (r 6) and interest calculations (r 10), keep dated records, copies of communications, and evidence of service or referral. These records will be material for compliance audits and any administrative reviews.

11. Practical templates and training

• Prepare internal templates: (a) telephone-warrant intake form that captures name, position, purpose, grounds, magistrate’s opinion and applicant’s undertaking; (b) affidavit checklists; (c) referral confirmation forms for s 38 NPW Act plans; (d) notice-of-extension templates meeting r 8 requirements; and (e) a rate-fixation record for r 10.
• Train staff in the limited but precise variations in consultation scope when Schedule 8 referrals are under review (r 5(2)), and on the urgency and affidavit follow-up duties in telephone warrant scenarios.

Complying with these regulations requires attention to timing, the correct list of consultees in each situation, prompt affidavit production for telephone warrants, precise interest-rate calculation using the specified bank metric, and reliable filing of warrants in the Magistrates Court. Each required action flows from a specific regulation citation; embedding the actions into standard operating procedures will reduce the risk of procedural gaps.