Water Administration Ministerial Corporation (WAMC)

The Water Administration Ministerial Corporation (WAMC) is a legal entity responsible for delivering water resource management functions set out in the Water Management Act 2000 (the Act) on behalf of the NSW Government.

Three agencies deliver these statutory and regulatory WAMC services: the Water Group in the NSW Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water, WaterNSW and the Natural Resources Access Regulator (NRAR).

The 3 agencies contribute to managing the state’s water resources by delivering their WAMC functions, which include developing and implementing policies and plans for sharing water between water users and the environment, making water allocations, undertaking water monitoring, issuing licences and approvals and ensuring compliance with water laws and licences. These WAMC services help ensure water can be made available to water users and the environment on a timely and sustainable basis. WAMC also owns and manages land and other assets and administers controlled activity approvals, including holding financial securities.

WAMC also owns and manages land and other assets and administers controlled activity approvals, including holding financial securities. More information on controlled activities and security bonds is available at:  Manage a security bond

Below is a high-level overview of the WAMC agencies’ responsibilities. Detail on the roles and responsibilities for delivering WAMC services across the 3 agencies are set out in the Roles and Responsibilities Agreement.

IPART regulates water management prices

The Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal of NSW (IPART) determines the maximum prices that water licence holders pay for water planning, management and compliance services provided by WAMC.

The costs of managing water resources in NSW are recovered partly through WAMC’s water management charges and other fees that IPART determines and are partly paid by the NSW Government.

IPART’s current WAMC price determination period applies from 1 October 2025 until 30 June 2029. To inform its determination, IPART conducted an independent, public review that considered a pricing proposal from WAMC and several rounds of public engagement on issues and draft decisions.

To view the WAMC pricing proposal, stakeholder submissions and IPART’s reports, visit the IPART website. 

IPART sets separate prices that WaterNSW can charge for rural bulk water services. These charges, paid by water licence holders on regulated rivers, cover WaterNSW’s costs of operating, maintaining, and upgrading infrastructure to store and deliver water. For more information on rural bulk water prices, visit: Rural bulk water fees and charges.

Current WAMC fees and charges

See IPART’s current WAMC price determination. 

To calculate bills for WAMC and rural bulk water prices visit: Billing calculators 

A breakdown of how the revenue from WAMC charges under IPART’s current price determination is allocated to different activities can be found at: IPART pricing breakdown

Community engagement on WAMC services and prices

The WAMC agencies engage with customers and the community on all new water management policies, plans, infrastructure investment, rule changes and as part of NRAR’s compliance and enforcement activities. Customer and community engagement is a key input to decisions about water planning, management and compliance in NSW. 

WAMC agencies also conducted extensive customer, community, and stakeholder engagement from early 2023 to early 2024 to inform the pricing proposal to IPART. We conducted surveys and interviews through the joint Voice of Customer survey and engaged with WaterNSW’s customer advisory groups and with consultation groups on WAMC outcomes, customer services and options to manage price increases. What we heard through this engagement helped shape proposed WAMC services and costs.

The WAMC Engagement Charter sets out our approach to engagement, in conjunction with engagement strategies of each WAMC agency. The Engagement Outcomes Report summarises the feedback we heard during this process and how it is reflected in our pricing proposal.

As part of the 2026-29 price review, WAMC established 4 long term outcomes, with more specific objectives under each one. We will publish a report each year on our progress towards the outcomes and objectives using a series of performance measures and targets, which are being refined to align with IPART’s determination. The first WAMC outcomes report will be published later in 2026. The WAMC outcomes and objectives are set out below.

View the latest reports on certain output measures and performance indicators set for WAMC by IPART.

View historical reports on key output measures and performance indicators established for WAMC by IPART.