Water market and termination fee rules
On 16 June 2009 the Minister for Climate Change and Water signed the following rules:
- Water market rules
- Water charge (termination fee) rules.
The rules apply from 1 January 2010 and 1 September 2009 respectively. Both have transition periods to allow affected parties time to adjust.
Details of the development of these and other rules is provided in the development of rules link on this page.
In summary, the rules will:
- enable individual farmers to apply to transform water held as a share of a group licence into an individual statutory entitlement that can be freely traded - the Water market rules
- establish a consistent basis for setting termination fees, to provide for the ongoing costs of maintaining irrigation networks, when an irrigator terminates access to the network - the Water charge (termination fee) rules.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission provided advice to the Minister on the rules and will produce guidance material to assist operators and irrigators in applying them.