The 17 October 2022 Goulburn to the Murray seasonal trade opportunity will not proceed. The volume of seasonal trade opportunity that was due to be made available in October will instead be included with the next release of additional seasonal trade opportunity on 15 December 2022.

The Goulburn to Murray trade opportunity is highly competitive and additional load is placed on our systems at these times.

Following the opening Goulburn to Murray trade opportunity in July, changes were made to move from the automatic Victorian Water Register processing of trade applications to manual trade application processing by the relevant water corporations. These changes were necessary to help manage the expected additional load on our system and provide the high level of service our customers need.

The second Goulburn to Murray trade opportunity opening on 17 October 2022 was initially postponed as the extreme flood conditions across northern Victoria required a significant number of water corporation staff and resources to be diverted to assist the emergency response, and this work continues, with uncertain impacts over the next month due to more forecast storm events.

In an effort to manage this pressure on the emergency flood response, the October trade opening will not proceed and this trade volume will instead be made available with the next release of trade opportunity on 15 December 2022.

The Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning is making arrangements to ensure that going forward appropriate contingencies are in place to support manual processing of trade opportunities in the face of natural disasters so this situation can be avoided in the future, and certainty can be provided to water market participants.

We are also investing in a new water register through the Victorian Water Register Transform project which underlines our commitment to provide reliable services for water market participants.