The Government wants to go away and think about a report which suggests major commercial water users have their consumption monitored, and potentially restricted.

A new Land and Water Forum report recommends local councils distinguish between supply for essential domestic needs, and supply for commercial purposes.

There are 60 recommendations, covering everything from iwi rights and catchment management to excluding stock from waterways.

Taking steps to reduce the over-allocation of water consents, and ideas about metering urban water use are also in the report.

Land and Water Forum Chairman Alastair Bisley seems confident the Forum's recommendations will be picked up by the Government.

"Why wouldn't they want to do it? I mean, if you get something which is agreed by Federated Farmers, by the generators, by the rural entities, by green NGOs, by iwi, what's not to love?

One of the recommendations made in the report suggests water allocations be set aside for iwi, pending agreements between Maori and the Crown on water rights. Bisley said in some catchments it would be a difficult step because water is already fully allocated, or even over-allocated.

"But in some other catchments it's not fully allocated. You might consider reserving some of that unallocated water for iwi."

Environment Minister Nick Smith said the report challenges the Government to think about the issue, given compulsory metering is being imposed on farmers.

"Would it not also be fair to require those large commercial and industrial users that are using a similar scale of water to also be required to metre? That's an issue in this report that we're going to have to reflect on, it has some merit."

But the Government insists nothing's going to change in its stance on who owns New Zealand's water. Smith said the Government is having discussions with iwi leaders and there are some significant steers from big water users too.

"The Prime Minister has made quite plain that there will be no national settlement. That water is not to be owned by anybody but as a public resource, and that this needs to be worked out catchment by catchment."

Meanwhile the Primary Industries Minister is confident the farming sector will be able to meet proposed new rules aimed at protecting rivers and streams. The framework in the report would exclude all cattle, deer, and pigs from waterways on plains and lowland hills.

Nathan Guy said dairy farmers have seen this coming for some time, and 95 percent of dairy farms already meet the standard.

"I think by and large farmers see this as a good thing, they realise our markets are demanding more of us in this space so I just think that they will say yes we're on board with it."