DEPARTMENT OF WATER AND
ENVIRONMENTAL REGULATION —COST RECOVERY DISCUSSION PAPER
136. Hon COLIN TINCKNELL to the minister representing the
Minister for Water:
I refer to submissions to the
Department of Water and Environmental Regulation on the discussion paper on
cost recovery for the Department of Water and Environmental Regulation. In an
answer to question without notice 1293 asked on 4 December 2018, the Minister
for Water said that the Department of Water and Environmental Regulation would
publish the submissions on its website.
(1) Has the Department of Water and
Environmental Regulation published the submissions?
(2) If yes to (1), can the minister
please provide the URL link to the submissions?
(3) If the submissions have not been
published, why not; and can we expect them to be published?
(4) Is the
Minister for Water withholding publishing the submissions so that their content
is not available for informed debate on the water licence fees disallowance
motion later this week?
Hon
ALANNAH MacTIERNAN replied:
I thank the member for the question.
The following information has been provided to me by the Minister for Water.
(1) No.
(2) Not applicable.
(3) The Department
of Water and Environmental Regulation is still analysing the submissions and
finalising its consultation summary report.
The submissions will be published when the analysis has been completed.
(4) No. The
disallowance motion is with regard to regulation amendments that introduced a water
licence application fee for the mining and public water supply sectors only.
The consultation process that the department commenced last year was to
investigate the potential for some form of cost recovery for water licence
applications in other sectors. No decision has been made to introduce water
licence fees in sectors outside the mining and public water supply sectors, and
any decision to do so would require a further amendment to the regulations.