The annual audit of water brokers who use the Water Register’s Broker Portal/API (referred to as the portal) for making allocation trades online has been completed for the 2014-15 financial year.

The portal allows brokers to lodge allocation trades online on behalf of their customers at a reduced cost for near-instant processing in most cases. In 2014-15 this service facilitated 9,170 allocation trades (65 percent of all trades).

By 2014-15 18 brokers had entered into an agreement with the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning (DELWP) to use the portal. The Agreement specifies requirements that the brokers must comply with when using the portal.

The audit

The accountants RSM Bird Cameron, on behalf of DELWP, audited each broker’s compliance with the Agreement in 2014-15.

The audit included site visits to all respective brokers in Victoria, New South Wales and South Australia between July and August 2015. A representative sample of more than 657 transactions was tested, as well as other checks such as the storage of sensitive information and investigation of a broker’s knowledge of their responsibilities to their clients and DELWP.

Positive results

The audit found that overall there was compliance with the Agreement. However, the auditors made some recommendations to further strengthen compliance. The auditors’ recommendations and DELWP’s response are included in the audit summary report which can be found here:

Download PDF 2014/15 Audit summary - brokers using the Water Register Portal/API (PDF - 107 Kb)

DELWP has contacted brokers to address specific issues raised by the auditor relevant to that broker.

If you have any queries regarding the audit please contact James Mugodo on (03) 9637-8147.