Water buy-back targets set by the Federal Government will fall short and may cause serious damage to the water market, according to a report by national broker Waterfind.
They company's chief executive, Tom Rooney, said using the past five years as a forecasting tool, the government would need to acquire 100pc of the Murray-connected entitlement market for 14 years to achieve the 1500 gigalitres return target through market-based mechanisms.
Assuming the value of water entitlements continued to grow at 15pc per annum - as they had been doing over the past decade - the government's budget was sufficient to only secure about 540gL of entitlements.
* Extract of a story from Stock Journal, South Australia's leading farming newspaper. Get your copy every Thursday.
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