Big players in rural water trading, including the federal government, are frustrated by a lack of transparency and pricing information in the maturing market, which last year grew by 75 per cent to $2.8 billion.
The Australian Financial Review reports that the Commonwealth official who is responsible for buying $3.1 billion of water licenses for the environment over the 10 years to 2016-17 has admitted that the lack of timely information on prices was an issue.
Assistant secretary, water recovery branch, in the Department of Environment and Water, Colin Mues, said that since buybacks began in early 2008, the Commonwealth had spent $1.3 billion by the end of January purchasing the licences for almost 800 gigalitres of water, with long-term average yields of 532 Gl.
Chairman of the Murray-Darling Basin Authority Mike Taylor said that for a market to function well, there needed to be timely information about the pricing of transactions. But this information was not yet readily available in the water market, he said.
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