Progress of 2008-09 Restoring the Balance in the Murray-Darling Basin Water Purchasing
The aim of the Restoring the Balance in the Murray-Darling Basin program is to provide more water for the environment, which can be used to protect and restore Basin river systems and wetlands.
Purchases in 2008 were primarily made through tenders which operated from September 2008 until 30 June 2009. For further information on these tenders please refer to the Strategic approach to water purchasing in 2008-09.
This website provides aggregate information on Australian Government water purchases where recorded contracts have been exchanged as at 31 October 2009.
Information on the criteria used for making the decision to purchase these entitlements can be found in the Restoring the Balance in the Murray-Darling Basin fact sheet.
This data has been updated to reflect the details of exchanged contracts recorded on 31 October 2009. The data will be further updated as additional contracts are exchanged.
| Catchment | Entitlement Type | 2007-08 Purchases (ML) | 2008-09 Purchases (ML) | Expected average annual volume of water available for the environment (ML) | Average price paid per trade 2008-09 ($/ML) (b, c) |
MDBC Sustainable Rivers Audit Health Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| QLD Border Rivers | Medium Priority | 5,325 | 1,757 | $2,300 | Moderate | |
| QLD TOTAL(e) | 5,325 | 1,757 | ||||
| Gwydir | General security | 2,916 | 71,510 | 26,793 | $2,250 | Poor |
| Supplementary | 16,324 | 3,102 | NA | |||
| Barwon-Darling (a) | Unregulated | 28,603 | 28,603 | NA | Poor | |
| Namoi | General security | 5,777 | 4,448 | $2,057 | Poor | |
| Macquarie | General security | 884 | 56,365 | 24,045 | $1,269 | Very Poor |
| Supplementary | 1,888 | 397 | NA | |||
| Lachlan | High security | 300 | 300 | NA | ||
| General security | 7,214 | 72,391 | 33,434 | $696 | Very Poor | |
| Murrumbidgee | General security | 47,606 | 30,468 | NA | Very Poor | |
| Supplementary | 20,821 | 2,915 | NA | |||
| NSW Other | Various | 1,248 | 786 | NA | ||
| NSW TOTAL (includes Murray)(e) |
16,264 | 443,526 | 257,303 | |||
| Campaspe | High reliability | 635 | 3,685 | 4,104 | $2,374 | Very Poor |
| Goulburn-Broken | High reliability | 650 | 60,377 | 57,976 | $2,389 | Very Poor |
| Low reliability | 370 | 4,603 | 1,741 | $195 | ||
| Ovens | High reliability | 50 | 48 | NA | Poor | |
| VIC Other | 392 | 252 | NA | |||
| VIC TOTAL (includes Murray)(e) |
7,662 | 143,911 | 135,535 | |||
| Murray | VIC above Choke - High reliability | 5,104 | 23,618 | 27,286 | $2,187 | Poor - Very Poor |
| VIC below Choke - High reliability | 500 | 44,047 | 42,320 | $2,375 | ||
| VIC above Choke - Low reliability | 160 | 3,574 | 896 | $190 | ||
| VIC below Choke - Low reliability | 193 | 3,614 | 914 | $200 | ||
| NSW General security - above choke (d) | 1,780 | 99,038 | 81,663 | $1,319 | ||
| NSW General security - below choke | 3,170 | 21,954 | 20,350 | $1,273 | ||
| SA High security | 427 | 20,589 | 18,914 | $2,390 | ||
| SA TOTAL(e) | 427 | 20,589 | 18,914 | |||
| TOTAL(e) | 24,353 | 613,351 | 413,510 |
(a) Includes the water entitlements acquired from Toorale Station
(b) The average prices displayed are not necessarily an indicator of the current price the Australian Government is willing to pay for water entitlements. This is because the prices the government is willing to pay for water entitlements are adjusted according to factors such as market price movements, reliability of entitlements, expected environmental benefits and the cumulative volume of purchases that have been made in each catchment. The average prices displayed reflect consideration of these factors at the time applications were accepted, which may be some months prior to the time contracts were exchanged.
(c) Full purchasing information, including average price paid per trade, is only provided for catchments where contracts have been exchanged with five or more non-Twynam sellers. For catchments where this is not the case and water has been purchased from Twynam Agricultural Group, only the volume of the Twynam purchase is shown. This is to protect the privacy of sellers.
(d) Includes Murray Irrigation Limited (MIL) trades - the volumes and price per megalitre of MIL transactions have been adjusted to account for delivery system losses of 17 per cent on MIL entitlements prior to 1 July 2009. See MIL's website (PDF) for an explanation of MIL entitlements before and after 1 July 2009.
(e) Figures have been rounded
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