AUSTRALIAN CAPITAL TERRITORY

WATER RATES ORDINANCE 1965

EXPLANATORY MEMORANDUM

No. 18 of 1965

	For sometime charges for water rates in the Australian Capital Territory have been inadequate to meet the costs of providing a water supply.  Approval has consequently been given for amendment of the existing legislation to make new rates for initial supply and excess usage of water in the Territory in respect of metered land.

	The new Water Rates Ordinance amends the Principal Ordinance by reducing the total quantity of water to be supplied for the current sum of £5 from 100,000 gallons to 75,000 gallons and by increasing the rate for excess usage of water from 1/_ for each 1,000 gallons of water supplied in excess of 75,000 gallons to the sum of 2/_ for each 1,000 gallons of excess water so supplied.

	The existing rate in the case of a parcel of land, for the supply of water for which a system of works has been constructed and where such parcel of land is not connected to that system of works has been increased from the sum of £1 for a rating year to the sum of £2 for such year.

	The special provisions contained in the Principal Ordinance relating to rates for rural leases have been repealed in order to place rates for supply of water to metered land in rural areas on the same basis as metered land in the city area.

	Consequent upon the introduction of the new allowance of 75,000 gallons of water a year at the rate of £5, it has been necessary to amend section 14 of the Principal Ordinance to enable proportionate liability for metered land for part of the meter reading year, where two or more persons hold a parcel as tenants of the Commonwealth for different periods during a year, to cover also the amended rate for supply of excess water.  The provision relating to reduction of rates in a meter reading year after a short meter reading period has also been appropriately amended to provide for the new rates.

	Special provision has been made for the Principal Ordinance and the amendment to apply, in relation to land in which water is supplied through a meter in the meter reading year commencing next after the commencement of the amending Ordinance and in subsequent meter reading years and, in respect of residential flats or land to which water is supplied otherwise than through a meter, in the rating year commencing on the First January, 1966, and in subsequent meter reading years.

J. D. ANTHONY