Health (Drinking Water) Amendment Act 2007

The Act was passed in October 2007. This replaces a mainly voluntary approach to ensuring water supplies provide safe water.

Read the Act here or as a pdf for the authoritative details. The following is a simplified summary.

Purpose of the Act

"... to protect the health and safety of people and communities by promoting adequate supplies of safe and wholesome drinking water from all drinking-water supplies."

Requirements in the Act

Where this website lists entries from a Register, there is a link to the list below.

Water suppliers must:

register their supply (see list),
monitor their water,
implement a public health risk management plan (PHRMP),
take all practicable steps to comply with the drinking-water standards,
ensure an adequate supply and take reasonable steps to protect the source.

A Water Carrier (someone who supplies drinking-water by tanker rather than pipes) must:

register their carrier business (see list),
renew their registration annually.

Drinking Water Assessors (DWAs) are empowered to:

assess compliance with standards in implementing PHRMPs, and the Act as a whole,
take appropriate steps where a supply is not complying.

Monitoring tests must be carried out by a recognised laboratory. (see list)

When do Supplies have to Comply with the Act?

See the Act itself for details of what constitutes a drinking-water supply, because a number of factors such as ownership, population, and who can access the water affect whether supplies are covered, and to what extent.

For those supplies that need to comply, dates are as follows:

Supply size	Population Range	Must comply from
New supplies	-	1 July 2009
Large	10,001 or more	1 July 2009
Medium	5,001 - 10,000	1 July 2010
Minor	501 - 5,000	1 July 2011
Small	101 - 500	1 July 2012
Neighbourhood	25 - 100	1 July 2013
Rural agricultural	-	2013 or later (not yet finalised)

Note that, if you're not sure how, or cannot afford, to improve your supply to compliance level, assistance may be available to you through the Drinking Water Assistance Programme (DWAP).