Water Act 2000

This section applies to a resource operations plan in force immediately before the commencement.

On the commencement, the provisions of the resource operations plan—

if section 1260 applies—are taken to be omitted from the plan and included in a resource operations licence; or

if section 1261 applies—are taken to be omitted from the plan and to be an operations manual; or

if section 1262 applies—are taken to be omitted from the plan and included in a distribution operations licence; or

if section 1263 applies—are taken to be omitted from the plan and included in a water licence; or

if section 1264 applies—cease to have effect for the resource operations plan but are taken to have effect for the purposes of the water plan (previously the water resources plan) the provisions were implementing and, for those purposes, are to be read and construed with the water plan, with necessary changes; or

if they are not taken to be an operations manual mentioned in paragraph (b) or taken to be included in a document mentioned in paragraphs (a), (c) or (d) or otherwise provided for under paragraph (e) and, under the amended Act, the provisions of the plan deal with a matter that is relevant to the usual content of a water management protocol—are taken to be omitted from the plan and to be a water management protocol; or

if they are not taken to be, or not taken to be included in, a document mentioned in paragraphs (a) to (d) or (f) or otherwise provided for under paragraph (e)—cease to have effect.

For a resource operations plan that is not subject to a consultation process, subsection (2) applies from the commencement.

For a resource operations plan that is subject to a consultation process or for which there is a deferred aspect—

the plan continues in force and must be dealt with under the unamended Act as if the unamended Act had not been amended; and

subsection (2) applies to the provisions of the plan from—

if the Minister has released a draft or amending water resource plan for public consultation and subparagraph (iii) does not apply—the approval by the Governor in Council of the final draft of the water resource plan; or

if the chief executive has released a draft or amending resource operations plan under the water resource plan for public consultation and subparagraph (iii) does not apply—the approval by the Governor in Council of the final draft of the resource operations plan; or

if the conditions mentioned in subparagraphs (i) and (ii) both apply—the approval by the Governor in Council of both the final draft of the water resource plan and the final draft of the resource operations plan; or

if there is a deferred aspect for the resource operations plan that implements the water resource plan—

the approval by the Governor in Council of an amendment to the resource operations plan about the deferred aspect; or

the publication of a notice by the chief executive advising that the chief executive has decided not to amend the resource operations plan to include provisions about the deferred aspect.

For subsection (4)(b), if all or any of the provisions of the final draft of the water resource plan or the resource operations plan provide for their commencement on a particular day, the provisions are taken to commence in the instruments mentioned in subsection (2) on the particular day.

Subsection (6) applies to a document mentioned in subsection (2)(a) to (d) and (2)(f).

The chief executive may prepare or amend the document to give effect to this section, in the way the chief executive considers appropriate.

Subsection (2)(e) continues to apply for the purposes of a water plan until the plan is amended to include provisions of the kind mentioned in section 1264.

An amendment of a water plan as mentioned in subsection (7) must include a declaration that it is made for the subsection.

On amendment of the water plan as mentioned in subsection (7)—

the provisions of the resource operations plan mentioned in section 1264 are taken to be omitted from the resource operations plan; and

subsection (2)(e) ceases to have effect for the purposes of the water plan.

The consultation provisions under section 51 do not apply to an amendment of a water plan under subsection (7).

To remove any doubt, it is declared that if the draft water plan includes both of the following amendments, section 46(2)(c) as applied by section 51(1) may be complied with in the notice required by section 46(2) by indicating in the notice the part of the draft about which an entity may make a submission—

an amendment mentioned in subsection (7);

an amendment to which the consultation provisions apply.