Urban Water Legislation

qldwater keeps members up-to-date on legislation affecting the water and sewerage industry through regular e flashes on legislative change (see Related Documents below).

Please contact enquiry@qldwater.com.au for regulatory questions you may have – our staff have extensive knowledge of many requirements and contacts in the qldwater network for areas in which we have less experience.

Regulatory Plans and KPIs

On 7 May 2014, parliament passed the Water Supply Services Legislation Amendment Bill 2014, paving the way for simplified regulation in Queensland.  This followed a period of proliferation of statutory plans such as Strategic Asset Management Plans, Total Management Plans, System Leakage Management Plans, Drought Management Plans and Recycled Water Management Plans.

The following remain statutory requirements from 2014:

  • Customer Service Standards and other SEQ-specific customer requirements reflected in the South East Queensland Water (Distribution and Retail Restructuring) Act 2009
  • Drinking Water Quality Management Plans for Drinking Water Providers
  • Water Management Plans for Recycled Water Providers (with reduced coverage)
  • Local Government Asset Management Plans

    A local government’s long-term asset management plan must—
    (a) provide for strategies to ensure the sustainable management of the assets mentioned in the local government’s asset register and the infrastructure of the local government; and
    (b) state the estimated capital expenditure for renewing, upgrading and extending the assets for the period covered by the plan; and
    (c) be part of, and consistent with, the long-term financial forecast (Local Government Reg s.167; Local Government Act s.104).

  • Netserv Plans (SEQ only)

    The Bill also introduced the requirement for a series of Key Performance Indicators to be reported annually to the Queensland Government - currently the Department of Regional Development, Manufacturing and Water (DRDMW), and changes to the regulation of recycled water including the coverage of Recycled Water Management Plans and the requirement for a register of schemes.

In order to retain some record of the previous system, the following archived pages will remain available:

Key Links

The DRDMW main access page for industry regulation and reporting requirements is available here.


Queensland Health’s main page for water quality  includes general information on drinking water including advisories, specific contaminants, testing as conducted by the public health laboratories and information on recycled water for low exposure uses – the most common uses which are regulated through the Public Health Act 2005 since the 2014 changes.  The site includes a number of other useful guidance documents for service providers.


Related Documents

ARCHIVE DEWS-Introduction-to-performance-outcome-framework - Release Date 21-Jul-2015: -

ARCHIVE DEWS-Comparative-Reporting - Release Date 21-Jul-2015: - As part of the Performance Reporting framework, the Department of Energy and Water Supply will prepare an annual comparative report based on data submitted by service providers in their annual performance report. It will compare the performance of water and sewerage providers across Queensland allowing customers to see how their service provider performs relative to similar providers and to allow benchmarking of similar service providers.

ARCHIVE DEWS-Factsheet-Performance-Reporting - Release Date 21-Jul-2015: - Department of Energy and Water Supply fact sheet on annual performance reporting. The comparative report aims to allow customers to see how their service provider performs relative to similar providers and to allow benchmarking of similar service providers.