Northern Territory Consolidated Acts Northern Territory Consolidated Acts(1) Subject to this or any other law in force in the Territory, a person has, without the specific permission of the pastoral lessee, a right to be on:
(a) perennial natural water (including the sea) on or surrounded by (or, in the case of the sea or a stream or waters forming the boundary of pastoral land, bordered by) pastoral land; or
(b) land within the prescribed distance of those waters.
(2) Subject to this Part, where a pastoral lessee, within 12 months after the commencement of this Act, by notice in a newspaper circulating in the area in which his or her pastoral land is situated, nominates a reasonably practicable route across land the subject of his or her lease from a public road to water referred to in subsection (1), advises the Board in writing of the route so nominated and indicates on the land by reasonable signs or other means (such as by grading the surface of an access road or track), access to the water may be obtained by members of the public, without the specific permission of the pastoral lessee, only by that route.
(3) Where a pastoral lessee has not under subsection (2) nominated a route, or has nominated a route that the Board considers is not practicable for the purposes of this Part, the Board may, in the same manner, nominate such a route as the route, or an alternative route, for public access to the water, and members of the public may use the route accordingly.
(4) In exercising its discretion under subsection (3) the Board shall have regard to:
(a) the possible environmental damage that may result from the use of a proposed route;
(b) the adverse effect, if any, that its use may have on the management of the pastoral land;
(c) the financial burden on any person (including the Territory) that may result from the nomination of the route;
(d) the impact, if any, on the privacy of persons residing on the pastoral land;
(e) the availability of alternative access other than across the pastoral land;
(f) whether, in its opinion, it is necessary for access to be provided across the pastoral land; and
(g) such other matters as it thinks fit or as are presented to it.
(5) A route shall not, by reason only of being nominated or indicated pursuant to subsection (2) or (3) or being used by members of the public as a consequence, become a public road.
(6) Subject to this Part, a person may camp temporarily on land within the prescribed distance of water referred to in subsection (1).
(7) This section does not give a person the right to camp:
(a) within a radius of 2 kilometres of a homestead or other residential premises on pastoral land;
(b) within a radius of 1 kilometre of a dam or other constructed stock watering point on pastoral land; or
(c) within 500 metres of every usual point of access for stock or wildlife to natural water.
(8) In this section prescribed distance means 50 metres or where, under subsection (9), some other distance is prescribed in relation to particular waters or water at a place, that other distance in relation to those waters or that place.
(9) The Board may, by notice in the Gazette , prescribe a distance for the purposes of subsection (8).