Commonwealth Consolidated Acts Commonwealth Consolidated Acts(1) Without limiting section 21, the Basin Plan must be prepared having regard to the fact that the Commonwealth and the Basin States have agreed:
(a) that critical human water needs are the highest priority water use for communities who are dependent on Basin water resources; and
(b) in particular that, to give effect to this priority in the River Murray System, conveyance water will receive first priority from the water available in the system.
(2) Critical human water needs are the needs for a minimum amount of water, that can only reasonably be provided from Basin water resources, required to meet:
(a) core human consumption requirements in urban and rural areas; and
(b) those non - human consumption requirements that a failure to meet would cause prohibitively high social, economic or national security costs.
(3) The River Murray System is the aggregate of:
(a) the main course of the River Murray upstream of the eastern boundary of South Australia; and
(b) all tributaries entering that part of the main course upstream of Doctors Point (near Albury); and
(c) all effluents and anabranches of that part of the main course; and
(d) the watercourses connecting Lake Victoria to the main course; and
(e) the Darling River downstream of the Menindee Lakes Storage; and
(f) the upper River Murray storages, namely:
(i) Lake Victoria; and
(ii) the Menindee Lakes Storage; and
(iii) the storages formed by Dartmouth Dam and Hume Dam; and
(iv) the storages formed by the weirs, and weirs and locks, described in Schedule A to the Agreement that are upstream of the eastern boundary of South Australia; and
(g) the River Murray in South Australia.
(4) Conveyance water is water in the River Murray System
required to deliver water to meet critical human water needs as far downstream
as Wellington in South Australia.