Sydney Water Act 1994

The Corporation may impose—

fees and charges for or in connection with any service or thing supplied or provided by the Corporation in the exercise of its functions under this Act, and

without affecting the generality of paragraph (a)—availability charges and stormwater drainage area charges.

Any such fees and charges may be fixed by reference to any factors or combination of factors, including but not limited to the following—

the nature of the service or thing provided,

the place where the service or thing is provided,

usage or estimated usage of the service or thing provided,

land value or any other value provided for in the Valuation of Land Act 1916 and at such base date as the Corporation determines,

land size, meter size or pipe size,

any factor specified in an operating licence or prescribed by the regulations.

The Corporation may impose any such fees and charges by customer contracts or by any other means. A fee or charge that is imposed by a customer contract cannot be altered except in accordance with the customer contract or an operating licence.

The Corporation may impose a compulsory fee or charge by means of a customer contract only, except to the extent that an operating licence or the regulations permit a specified compulsory fee or charge or specified class of compulsory fee or charge to be imposed by some other means. The regulations may determine for the purposes of this subsection the kinds of fees or charges that are or are not compulsory in nature.

An operating licence may regulate the imposition of any fees and charges, and in particular may provide for any or all of the following—

specified fees and charges must not be imposed or must cease being imposed,

specified fees and charges must be imposed,

specified fees and charges may be imposed by customer contracts only.

An operating licence may provide that the Corporation must, in imposing fees or charges or any specified class of fees or charges, do so—

on a basis that is consistent with the system employed by the Water Board for fixing such fees or charges immediately before the transfer of the business undertaking (including the relevant provisions of clauses 4 and 5 of the Water Board (Finance) Regulation 1988), or

on some other basis stipulated in the operating licence.

This section has effect subject to the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal Act 1992.