Water Management Act 2000

Any person may, in accordance with the regulations, object to the granting of an access licence—

for water in an area that is not within a water management area, or

for water in a water management area for which there is no water sharing management plan in force.

The Minister must inform the applicant for the access licence of the grounds of any objection to the granting of the licence and must allow the applicant a specified time within which to make a written response to the Minister in relation to the objection.

The Minister—

may require an objector or applicant to provide additional information within a specified time if of the opinion that additional information would be relevant to consideration of the objection or response, and

may delay consideration of the objection or response until the information is provided or, if the information is not provided within the time specified, may refuse to consider the objection or response.

If there is a deficiency in an objection or response, the Minister may notify the objector or applicant accordingly and allow further time to enable the deficiency to be rectified.

Before making a decision on an application for an access licence in respect of which any objection has been made, the Minister must endeavour to resolve the issues raised by the objection by means of consultation with the applicant and the objector, with a view to reaching agreement on the matters raised by the objection.

For the purpose of reaching such an agreement, the Minister may propose that the matters raised by the objection be dealt with by way of mediation or neutral evaluation involving an independent mediator or evaluator selected by agreement between the applicant, the objector and the Minister.

An application or objection may be dismissed by the Minister if the applicant or objector, as the case may be, fails to participate in any mediation or neutral evaluation proceedings referred to in subsection (6).