Canada is Victoria’s biggest water owner: 78,100 megalitres and counting
While the Commonwealth has used taxpayers' dollars to buy up a massive parcel of water, a foreign company can be revealed as the largest private-sector own of Victorian water. See who controls our most precious resource.
CANADA’s Public Sector Pension Investment Board is Victoria’s largest private-sector water holder, with 78,100 megalitres of high reliability water entitlements.
The parcel is worth about $508 million and is held by a $1 company the Canadians set up in October last year called Fresh Country Farms of Australia No.4.
Details of the Canadian holdings were published on the Victorian Water Register this week, in a bid to meet community demands to know the names of anyone holding more than two per cent of water in any irrigation system.
Of course after years of buyouts and efficiency investments to recover water under the Murray Darling Basin Plan it was the Commonwealth that topped the overall rankings, holding 30 per cent of all high reliability water shares in Northern Victoria, equal to 731,900ML of the state’s 2.45 million megalitres in entitlements.
Victoria’s Environmental Water Holder has pocketed another 12,200ML.
Excluding the Commonwealth the second-highest ranked water holder was another superannuation fund, VicSuper Ecosystem Services, with 56,500ML.
Next in the rankings was Duxton Water with 7700ML, followed by State Street Australia (owned by Aware Super) with 7100ML, while Australian Executor Trustees Limited and Akuna Holdings holding 6600ML each.
The full water register report is available here.
The register also reported 386,000ML of privately-owned high reliability water shares in northern Victoria were not tied to land in 2019-20, 16 per of all water shares.
BACKGROUND
The Canadian pension fund has been on a $2 billion spending spree in Australia over the past 18 months, snapping up vineyards, walnut plantations, cotton and cattle properties.
The fund holds the pensions funds for the nation’s public servants, including its 30,000 member-strong Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
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