Vic Water Register failure: Goulburn-Murray water trade in chaos

Victoria’s ageing water register is in disarray, delaying Goulburn-Murray water trade. But a lucky few managed to get water through.

Water trade out of the Goulburn to the Murray system has been delayed by more than three weeks, due to ongoing problems with the ageing Victorian water register.

Victoria’s ageing water register is in disarray, after a major processing glitch forced a three-week delay in the inter-valley allocation trade of 88,000 megalitres out of the Goulburn and into the Murray irrigation system.

Last Friday Victorian Water Register officers announced they had postponed Monday’s opening of the Goulburn-Murray IVT to trade, after the system “experienced performance issues over the last week”.

Yet despite this announcement, an error led to the IVT still opening on Monday, allowing brokers to trade 18,000ML on behalf of their irrigator clients out of the Goulburn system, with allocation water selling for $160/ML to the Murray, where it was worth $205/ML – a net gain of $810,000.

Register officials eventually realised their mistake and shut down the system, locking the accounts of irrigators who took advantage of the opening and demanding they return the 18,000ML.

In a statement released on Monday, the officials stated “due to a system error, some Goulburn to Murray trade opportunity became available for a short time.

“Impacted customers are being notified and we are seeking to address the errors.”

But industry sources say irrigators are resisting the officials’ demands and are exploring their legal options in regards to their accounts being locked.

Opening of the IVT has now been delayed until Thursday November 9, with the volume now available for transfer cut from 88,000ML to 70,000ML, to account for water already erroneously traded.

The delay has also exacerbated the pricing differential between the Goulburn and Murray irrigation systems.

Brokers contacted by The Weekly Times said the Water Register, which was built in 2007, was just unable to cope with the increasing sophistication and demands of southern Murray-Darling Basin water trade.

One of those demands is what one broker termed “fast-finger” strategies that allowed hundreds of trades to be lodged in milliseconds, overwhelming the register.

Wyuna irrigator Craig Baldwin said the whole problem could be resolved by ending the technology race that had given brokers the edge over irrigators in getting trade through the IVT.

Under the current system, brokers use a portal into the register that allows them to trade in milliseconds.

Meanwhile any irrigator wanting to trade, must manually enter their credit card details into the system, by which time the IVT has closed.

Mr Baldwin said irrigators had repeatedly told Water Register bureaucrats that a far more equitable system would allow everyone two to three days to register their intention to trade, after which a ballot could be used to select trades up to the IVT limit.

“Equity has to rule at the end of the day,” Mr Baldwin said.

Meanwhile a strategy to upgrade the register, which was launched in 2019, has still not been delivered.

The Victorian Government’s Project Transform document sets a target of the last quarter of 2023 to “design and implement a new water register platform”.

The Weekly Times is seeking a response from Water Minister Harriet Shing on why the platform has not been upgraded.