Just over $10 million has been paid for new water licences on Gulf rivers now that the tender process for unallocated water has finally been completed.
The Department of Natural Resources last week released its Gulf tender assessment report, showing that 92,500 megalitres has been allocated in the Flinders River catchment, 2500ML has been allocated in the Gregory River sub-catchment, and 5000ML has been allocated in the Lower Leichhardt sub-catchment.
Prices paid by the eight successful tenderers ranged from $45.50 to $125 per ML, while unsuccessful bids ranged in price from $45.01 to $200 per ML.
(Hover your mouse over the graph to see a summary of bid prices and volumes offered)
All of those granted a licence have taken up the departmental option of not releasing their names, which Flinders River Ag Precinct chairman, Brendan McNamara, said was surprising.
“Water’s a public asset, and who received previous allocations has been known to all.
“I guess it will come out in due course, but I would hope that some of the people who’ve got licences will use them, and development will happen.”
He estimated that of the 220,000ML available from past allocations, starting with the Bligh government in 2012, probably 10 per cent was being used.
He wasn’t sure if the latest allocations, ranging in size from 2500ML on the Gregory River to 50,000ML on the Flinders River, would be enough to kickstart development.
“If the one big allocation has gone to a big operator from last time, that might be enough for them to do something.”
In May 2013, the Newman government granted six water licences totalling 94,220ML to largely "big players", including Stanbroke, AACo and Alistair McClymont at Etta Plains.
Shadow Minister for Natural Resources and Northern Development, Andrew Cripps, said the allocation of an additional 100,000ML of water was a positive step forward for the development of the agricultural sector in north Queensland, but said the irrigated agriculture precinct vision would be jeopardised by Labor’s vegetation management policies.
“Given the Gulf ROP review was finalised in January 2015, expressions of interest were called in November 2015 and offers were made in November 2016, the Palaszczuk government has really dragged this process out unnecessarily and unfortunately, has only managed to get 100,000 of the additional 250,000ML of water identified by the review into the market” said Mr Cripps.
Natural Resources Minister, Andrew Lynham, wasn’t commenting on the report, but a departmental spokesman said that while 160,000ML remains unallocated in the Flinders catchment, there is already 220,000ML of existing entitlements that can be used to drive economic benefits for the region.
“It is important that we consider demand, potential projects and community expectations before we release this water so that we maximise the economic benefit for the north,” he said.
Mr McNamara said he could understand the department’s point of view.
“It’s good that water’s still there to use, and I’ll be interested to know what its price will be and how it’s likely to be allocated.”
He said FRAP would meet in the next couple of months to discuss that.
There were 29 unsuccessful tenderers, and Mr McNamara wanted to know why so many had failed the evaluation criteria.
“I was under the impression the tender document wasn’t onerous to complete,” he said.
According to the report, the assessment process revealed that many tenders did not meet the land suitability criteria, “necessary to reduce the likelihood of degradation occurring to land or water resources and to protect sensitive sites”.
It said six unsuccessful tenderers were outranked by bid price and there was insufficient residual volume of water available after offers were made to higher-ranked successful tenderers, while 23 unsuccessful tenderers failed to address the evaluation criteria.
The 2013 competitive tender process received 22 applications for unallocated water - 18 in the Flinders catchment and four in the Gilbert River catchment.
