Extract:
Agriculture and Resource Management Council of Australia and New Zealand (1995) Water allocations and entitlements: a national framework for the implementation of property rights in water. A Policy Position Paper. Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra.

Principles establishing a strategic framework for the implementation of property rights in water:

1.  That all consumptive and non-consumptive water entitlements be allocated and managed in accordance with comprehensive planning systems and based on full basin-wide hydrologic assessment of the resource.

2.  That water entitlements and institutional arrangements be structured so as not to impede the effective operation of water markets and such that, as far as practible, trading options associated with property rights in water reside with the individual end-users of water.

3. That water entitlements by clearly specified in terms of:
*   rights and conditions of ownership tenure;
*   share of the natural resource being allocated (including the probability of occurrence);
*   details of agreed standards of any commercial serves to be delivered;
*   constraints to and rules of transferability;  and
*   constraints to resource use or access.

4. That acceptable rules on the holding and trading of environmental flow entitlements be resolved by jurisdictions at the same time as determining the appropriate balance between consumptive and non-consumptive uses of water;

5.  That where inter-state trading of water entitlements is possible, jurisdictions cooperatively develop on a catchment basis compatible approaches for (or at least clear  conversion mechanisms between):
*   planning systems and basin-wide hydrologic assessment methods;
*   pricing and asset valuation arrangements;
*   water entitlement trading arrangements; and
*   provisions for environmental and other in-stream values.

6.  That in implementing and initialising property rights in water, jurisdictions call on water users, interest groups and the general community to be involved as partners in catchment planning processes that affect the future allocation and management of water entitlements.

7.  That governments give urgent priority to establishing the regulatory arrangements that are necessary to implement and support the strategic framework.

Home