Chapter 9 of Water for Victoria sets out a range of actions to improve the effectiveness of water markets and trading rules across the state. Work to implement this may lead to a revised program of trading rule improvements to those outlined in the Northern SWS.
A report on the progress of elements of this action is set out below.
A. Completed for the Broken River. Other basins may be reviewed on an as needed basis.
B. Trade in the Coliban and Broken systems:
- Broken system trade review completed with changes to carryover and allocation trade implemented.
- Work on the Coliban system has commenced but with no nominated completion date.
C. Barmah-Choke trading rules - Processes for announcing the relaxation of the trade restriction across the Choke have been put in place, but Victoria is pursuing further work with the MDBA to define guidelines for when the trade rule can be relaxed.
D. Leasing options – Public checklist to support leasing contract not commenced. However, new, more flexible options to manage lease arrangements have also been created under the Water Act, with amendments in 2014 to allow a water share owner to issue a standing direction for future allocations to be assigned to another person.
E. Interstate trade processing:
- Completed for allocation trading, with Victorian, NSW and SA water registers now communicating through automated data files. This has led to significant improvements in trade processing times, with 90% of trades with NSW now completed within 5 days and 90% of trades with SA now completed within 6 days, well inside the COAG standards of 10 and 20 days respectively.
- Some progress has been made on interstate tagging of entitlements – a CoAG workgroup prepared an Issues Paper and then referred the matter to the MDBA. Further work on this will be progressed through the Interstate Trade Adjustments project in 2017.
F. General trading rules and exceptions for unregulated trades.
- Victoria's winter-fill SDLs are now maintained in the Victorian Water Register.
- Relaxation of the general rules in the upper Murray has been investigated but not yet been completed.
- An investigation of trade in the Ovens and King is complete and changes implemented
- The 'Policies on Managing Take and Use Licences' now include a provision to allow upstream trade in special circumstances.
- A study on the possibility of relaxing the 20% on downstream trades in the Kiewa is underway, with recommendations on the possibility to relax this rule in the Kiewa and other locations to be considered.
G. Improving trading information for unregulated systems.
- Little progress in reviewing restriction policies.
- Investigation of changes to trading zones has not commenced.
H. Trading between unregulated and regulated systems. No opportunities for improvement have been discovered to date.
I. Trade of groundwater - DEECA continues to discuss the interpretation of Basin Plan groundwater trade rules with the Murray-Darling Basin Authority.
Reporting should be updated if further progress is made.
Action status: Ongoing
