Individual large water holders to be listed on Victorian Water Register

The state government says listing large individual water holders on a public register will improve transparency, but some are worried it will put their privacy at risk.

Victorian Water Minister Lisa Neville introduced legislation this month that will add large water holding individuals to the Victorian Water Register. Picture: NCA NewsWire/David Geraghty

New legislation introduced to the Victorian parliament this month aims to increase transparency in the water market by listing individuals who own large volumes of water on the state’s public water register, a move some water owners say will be an “invasion of privacy”.

The Victorian Water Register already lists corporations that own more than 2 per cent of high reliability water shares. Under the amendment introduced this month by Water Minister Lisa Neville individuals will be added to the register.

Victorian Farmers Federation water chair Andrew Leahy said the VFF supported the legislation, but some of its members were concerned adding individuals to the list would breach their privacy, and may expose them to more “nuisance” phone calls from water traders looking to buy and sell water.

Mr Leahy said listing only water holders who own more than 2 per cent of high reliability water shares had been “a reasonable compromise”, and would mean most “larger family businesses will be left out of it”.

The Victorian Government, backed by independents including Mildura MP Ali Cupper, said the Bill would increase transparency in the water market.

Ms Neville said the amendments had been drafted following “extensive consultation”, and would “improve confidence in the market”.

Ms Cupper said listing all large water holders on the register was key to transparency.

“These are people who own a lot of water, a lot of a very scarce resource that we all rely on. They owe it to the rest of the community to be known,” she said.

In NSW, Shooters Fishers and Farmers MP Helen Dalton said she was “excited” by the update to the Victorian legislation and would be “watching (the progress of the Bill) anxiously”.

Mrs Dalton said she was planning to introduce similar legislation to the NSW parliament for a third time, after two previous attempts had been knocked back.

NSW’s existing water register was “not transparent, not easy to use, and incomplete”, she said. To navigate it, users had to know a water holder’s access licence number and couldn’t search by name.

In response to a petition launched by Mrs Dalton earlier this year to update details available through the NSW Water Register, NSW Water Minister Melinda Pavey said “ownership of water rights and details of water trading activity in NSW is already publicly available and disclosed through the NSW Water Access Licence Register and additional online registers and dashboards, for all water access licences in NSW”.