Large Water Owners
Updated 24/09/2025
This page provides insights to address community interest in water ownership, focusing on northern Victoria.
The Victorian Government committed to publishing a report on Large Water Owners in response to the 2019 and 2020 consultation on water market transparency. Through this consultation, it was clear that the community wanted more transparency in certain aspects of the water market, balanced with an appropriate level of individual and commercial privacy.
Under these same commitments, a similar report, the Frequent Traders Report, publishes the names of individuals and organisations’ allocation accounts who have completed more than 20 allocation trades in the Goulburn and Murray systems during a water year.
From 1 July 2024, following an amendment to the Water Act 1989, the Minister for Water can now include names of individuals in public reports in specific circumstances.
Who qualifies as a large water owner?
This report defines large water owners within Northern Victoria as any party that owns over 2% of the high reliability water shares within the largest declared river systems in northern Victoria. The river systems that are reported on are:
- Goulburn system (trading zones 1A, 1B and 3)
- Murray system above Barmah Narrows (trading zone 6)
- Murray system below Barmah Narrows (trading zones 6B and 7).
Other northern systems were not considered for the scope of this report as the Goulburn and the Murray systems are the largest systems with the most market participants and market activity.
Water shares owned by related owners have not been added together. The Victorian Water Register does not collect information about company structures which would be needed to determine which companies are related to one another. In some instances, organisations listed may be the registered owner of water shares on behalf of other parties.
Only where names of water share owners are exactly the same have the water share volumes been consolidated.
This report focuses on the owners of water shares only. It does not include other types of entitlements in these systems such as bulk entitlements and environmental entitlements held by water corporations and the Victorian Environmental Water Holder. Bulk and environmental entitlement volumes are publicly reported on the Victorian Water Register website.
Key statistics
This report is based on data as at 30 June 2025.
- The Australian Government (Commonwealth of Australia) has increased its holdings in the Goulburn system and now holds 30.1% of Goulburn high reliability water shares, compared to 29% last year. They still hold the largest proportion of water shares in each of the three river systems we report on.
- There is one new party listed as a large water owner since 1 July 2024. Sandhurst Trustees LTD has emerged as a large water owner in the Murray system below the Barmah Narrows.
- There are 8 large water owners who own more than 2% of high reliability water shares in one or more of the reported systems:
- no named parties are individuals
- 8 named parties are organisations.
Who were the largest owners of water shares in Goulburn and Murray systems as at 30 June 2025?
Goulburn System
Figure 1: A visual representation of the ownership of high reliability water shares in the Goulburn, 30 June 2025. Each named box represents a water share owner above the 2% threshold. The size of the box represents the total volume of high reliability water shares held by each owner. The colour represents whether the water share is owned by the environment (green), privately (red) or by a water corporation (blue).
Murray above the Barmah Narrows
Figure 2: A visual representation of the ownership of high reliability water shares in the Murray above the Barmah Narrows, 30 June 2025. Each named box represents a water share owner above the 2% threshold. The size of the box represents the total volume of high reliability water shares held by each owner. The colour represents whether the water share is owned by the environment (green), privately (red) or by a water corporation (blue).
Murray below the Barmah Narrows
Figure 3: A visual representation of the ownership of high reliability water shares in the Murray below the Barmah Narrows, 30 June 2025. Each named box represents a water share owner above the 2% threshold. The size of the box represents the total volume of high reliability water shares held by each owner. The colour represents whether the water share is owned by the environment (green), privately (red) or by a water corporation (blue).
Publishing this information
Part 5A of the Water Act 1989 sets out the purpose of the Victorian Water Register, including to make information about water markets publicly available. This information was published in accordance with section 84EA.
Foreign ownership of water entitlements
Some Victorian water entitlements are foreign owned. The Australian Taxation Office reports on foreign ownership of water. The latest report is at 30 June 2023.
Previous large water owner reports