What it does
The Water Act 1992 (NT) establishes a comprehensive statutory framework for the investigation, allocation, use, control, protection, management and administration of water resources across the Northern Territory. At its core, s 9(2) vests property in and rights to the use, flow and control of all water (defined in s 4(1) to include water in waterways, groundwater and tidal water) in the Territory, exercisable by the Minister on behalf of the Crown. This foundational declaration is subject to the express rights and licensing regimes created elsewhere in the Act.
The Act creates a hierarchy of rights and authorisations. Division 1 of Part 2 preserves public rights to take water for domestic and stock purposes from waterways (s 10) and grants adjacent landowners limited rights to take water for domestic use, stock drinking water or garden irrigation not exceeding 0.5 ha (ss 11 and 14). These rights are however subordinated to declarations of Restricted Water Extraction Areas (s 14A), which freeze the number of entitled parcels upon subdivision or consolidation (s 14B) and impose nomination and registration obligations under the Planning Act 1999 and Land Title Act 2000 (s 14C). Bores on parcels that lose the s 14 right must be decommissioned (s 14D).
For larger or commercial uses, the Act establishes mandatory authorisation regimes. Part 5 regulates interference with waterways (s 40) and the taking of surface water (s 44), each requiring either a permit (s 41) or a water extraction licence (s 45). Part 6 does the same for groundwater, imposing licensing on bore work (ss 56 and 57), extraction (ss 59 and 60), underground waste disposal (ss 62 and 63), and aquifer recharge (ss 66 and 67). Section 45A expressly prohibits the grant of a surface-water licence for petroleum activity, while s 60A imposes additional consent or hydrogeological-modelling requirements before a groundwater licence can be granted for hydraulic fracturing within 1 km of designated bores.