The Government, through Water for Victoria has committed to actively monitoring water markets to ensure that they continue to operate effectively.

A key task in this is an annual audit of the water brokers who use the Water Register’s Broker Portal/API (“the portal”).

The audit for the 2015-16 financial year is now complete.

Broker audit

The portal allows brokers to lodge allocation trades on behalf of their customers online at a reduced cost. In most cases the portal processes trades instantly. In 2015-16 this service facilitated 10,151 allocation trades, or 65 percent of all trades.

In 2015-16, there were twenty-three brokers who had entered into an agreement with the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning (DELWP) to use the portal. Under the Agreement, brokers must comply with specific requirements when they use the portal.

DELWP engaged RSM Australia to audit all 21 brokers who submitted trades during 2015-16 to make sure they complied with the Agreement.

RSM Australia visited the sites of all 21 brokers being audited in Victoria, New South Wales and South Australia. The audit tested a representative sample of more than 1,025 transactions, evaluated the security of sensitive information and investigated the brokers’ knowledge of their responsibilities to their clients and DELWP.

Results

The audit found that overall there was compliance with the Agreement.

Based on the results from previous audit years, DELWP has worked with RSM Australia to develop a systematic approach to identify compliance issues, the associated risk of different breaches of the Agreement, and subsequent actions.

The audit summary report is available below presents the key findings of the audit and outlines DELWP’s risk-based framework for evaluating compliance.

Download PDF 2015/16 Audit summary - Brokers using the Water Register Portal/API (PDF - 351Kb)

DELWP has contacted each broker about any specific issues the auditor raised.