ࡱ> :<;7 ?bjbjUU *&7|7|?l, ,$$ F:, pw ,@G 0$QR V ,,PUBLIC SUBMISSION TO WATER MARKET RULES POSITION PAPER BY CENTRAL IRRIGATION TRUST ON 14 AUGUST 2008 The deadline of 15 August 2008 unfortunately has not provided CIT with sufficient time to provide a properly considered response to the issues contained in your Water Market Rules Position Paper. Providing a properly considered response has also not been helped by the difficult times we are currently experiencing. At the moment CIT must give priority to managing drought circumstances that are threatening the future of our farmers, communities and rivers, complete all our end of financial year commitments and undertake our annual formal meetings with irrigators. We have to achieve this with a 25% reduction in staff due to cost cutting measures to cope with the drought. Whilst we appreciated the visit by three of your staff to discuss your position paper, we did not have time to read let alone consider the 94 pages of material in your position paper before they arrived due to the circumstances outlined above. Accordingly we are not in a position to give a considered response to any of the detail in your paper by the deadline and can only make some general comments. Given the importance of these issues to the future of our business, the time you have allowed for us to respond is not reasonable. The following general observations based on incomplete consideration of the position paper are provided for your attention: THE NEED FOR MORE TIME South Australia has about 49 Irrigation Trusts of which the CIT group is the largest. Many of the other Trusts are very small and at this stage will have little or no understanding of the issues involved in the Water Market Rules and Water Charging Rules papers. The opportunity needs to be provided for all of the Trusts and the South Australian Government to give consideration to a joint position on the paper, not only to matters raised in the contents but to issues that flow on from the contents but are not included in the paper. By way of example, if transformation proceeds in the way you have outlined, the impact of imbalances created by Government between bulk district water licences and the total of member irrigators individual water allocations becomes an impediment to implementation. Another significant flow on affect will be making provision during transformation for conveyance losses in distribution systems. Whilst many interstate infrastructure operators have conveyance losses included in their arrangements with Governments, there are no such arrangements for Trusts in South Australia. Accordingly CIT believes the South Australian Trusts and Government should be given more time to consider flow on affects and the matters where we have a joint position on the contents of your position paper. TRANSFORMATION The issue of most concern to CIT is the proposed transformation process. We do not believe transformation provisions are at all necessary when we have already agreed to and implemented open trade, with the only aspect we need resolution to being a satisfactory outcome over termination fees versus fixed costs charged to abandoned land. Response deadlines have not given us the opportunity to examine the implications of transformation or to obtain legal opinion on how it might affect our responsibilities as an Irrigation Infrastructure Operator and irrigators responsibilities as members. We liken the ownership arrangement of our Trusts to the ownership of strata title properties. In our Irrigation Trusts, the members are the owners, on the one part as holders of individual titles to their farm and water entitlements, and on the other part as collective and shared owners of the delivery system assets, funds and liabilities. This seems to us to have similar features to strata titles over property where owners have individual ownership of a specified unit and joint ownership and responsibilities for collective assets that benefit the individuals. CIT cannot imagine the strata title owner ever being permitted to retain the individual unit without the attached joint ownership and obligations of the collective assets. Until we have had opportunity to consider this issue at length and to obtain legal advice on our position, we request that you not proceed further with developing plans to impose transformation on our group of member owned Irrigation Trusts. FURTHER CLARIFICATION Some matters that may be important to our consideration are unclear, such as: Does transformation only apply to Irrigation Trusts in South Australia and Irrigation Companies in New South Wales? Do Water Market Rules and Water Charging Rules apply to Government urban water authorities in respect of any irrigation water they deliver through urban schemes to agricultural enterprises? Do Water Market Rules and Water Charging Rules apply to any Irrigation Trusts established by Corporate Farms or MIS schemes as part of their agricultural enterprises? Will the Australian Government meet the additional costs to Irrigation Trusts for the implementation and ongoing administration of the proposed Water Market Rules? We request clarification on these questions and look forward to receiving a written reply. Yours sincerely Jeff Parish Chief Executive Officer 14 August 2008 Copies to:. Senator the Hon Penny Wong Hon Malcolm Turnbull MP Senator Nick Xenophon Patrick Secker MP Hon Karlene Maywald MP Mitch Williams MP eg? CJmH sH mH sH efg+, % & DEh^h^ & F?EMNNO56()*@h  hij & F hh^h`h & Fh^h^jz{-?h^h (1. A!"# $% i0@0 Normal_HmH sH tH 8@8 Heading 1$@& CJmH sH <A@< Default Paragraph Font>B@> Body Text$a$5CJ\mH sH ?&efg+, %&  D E M N N O 56()*@h  hijz{-A00000000 0 0 0 0 0  0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0  0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0  0 0 0 0 0 000000000000000000?Ej??mu!")AA@Afx]noz@g>A jeff_parishC:\Documents and Settings\jeff_parish\My Documents\PUBLIC SUBMISSION TO WATER MARKET RULES POSITION PAPACCC PUBLIC SUBMISSION 15 August 2008.Y CENTRAL IRRIGATION TRUST ON 15 AUGUST 2008.doc jeff_parishC:\Documents and Settings\jeff_parish\Application Data\Microsoft\Word\AutoRecovery save of PUBLIC SUBMISSION TO WATER MARKET RULES POSITION PAPACCC PUBLIC SUBMISSION 15 August 2008.asd jeff_parishC:\Documents and Settings\jeff_parish\Application Data\Microsoft\Word\AutoRecovery save of PUBLIC SUBMISSION TO WATER MARKET RULES POSITION PAPACCC PUBLIC SUBMISSION 15 August 2008.asd jeff_parishC:\Documents and Settings\jeff_parish\My Documents\PUBLIC SUBMISSION TO WATER MARKET RULES POSITION PAPACCC PUBLIC SUBMISSION 15 August 2008.Y CENTRAL IRRIGATION TRUST ON 15 AUGUST 2008.doc jeff_parishC:\Documents and Settings\jeff_parish\My Documents\PUBLIC SUBMISSION TO WATER MARKET RULES POSITION PAPACCC PUBLIC SUBMISSION 15 August 2008.Y CENTRAL IRRIGATION TRUST ON 15 AUGUST 2008.doc jeff_parishC:\Documents and Settings\jeff_parish\Application Data\Microsoft\Word\AutoRecovery save of PUBLIC SUBMISSION TO WATER MARKET RULES POSITION PAPACCC PUBLIC SUBMISSION 15 August 2008.asd jeff_parishC:\Documents and Settings\jeff_parish\Application Data\Microsoft\Word\AutoRecovery save of PUBLIC SUBMISSION TO WATER MARKET RULES POSITION PAPACCC PUBLIC SUBMISSION 15 August 2008.asd jeff_parishC:\Documents and Settings\jeff_parish\My Documents\PUBLIC SUBMISSION TO WATER MARKET RULES POSITION PAPACCC PUBLIC SUBMISSION 15 August 2008.Y CENTRAL IRRIGATION TRUST ON 15 AUGUST 2008.doc jeff_parishC:\Documents and Settings\jeff_parish\My Documents\PUBLIC SUBMISSION TO WATER MARKET RULES POSITION PAPACCC PUBLIC SUBMISSION 15 August 2008.Y CENTRAL IRRIGATION TRUST ON 15 AUGUST 2008.doc jeff_parishWG:\Parish\PUBLIC SUBMISSION TO WATER MARKET RULES POSITION PAPER BY CIT ON 13.08.08.doc`+6 ʛx;46 ʛh ^`OJQJo(^`.R LR ^R `L.""^"`.^`.L^`L.^`.bb^b`.2L2^2`L.^`o(.h ^`OJQJo(pLp^p`L.@ @ ^@ `.^`.L^`L.^`.^`.PLP^P`L.x;4`+                  @4&?@UnknownGz Times New Roman5Symbol3& z Arial#qhElfElf;lf%! Njr02QdPUBLIC SUBMISSION TO WATER MARKET RULES POSITION PAPER BY CENTRAL IRRIGATION TRUST ON 15 AUGUST 2008 jeff_parish jeff_parishOh+'00<HX lx    ePUBLIC SUBMISSION TO WATER MARKET RULES POSITION PAPER BY CENTRAL IRRIGATION TRUST ON 15 AUGUST 2008BUBL jeff_parisheffeffNormalr jeff_parish2ffMicrosoft Word 9.0O@G@F@@y@y՜.+,0L hp|  -cit% ePUBLIC SUBMISSION TO WATER MARKET RULES POSITION PAPER BY CENTRAL IRRIGATION TRUST ON 15 AUGUST 2008 Title  !"#$&'()*+,./012347Root Entry F0"91Table WordDocument*&SummaryInformation(%DocumentSummaryInformation8-CompObjjObjectPool0"0"  FMicrosoft Word Document MSWordDocWord.Document.89qRoot Entry F_?1Table WordDocument*&SummaryInformation(%  !"#$&'()*+,>= Title@ x_AdHocReviewCycleID_EmailSubject _AuthorEmail_AuthorEmailDisplayName 1SUBMISSION ON WATER TRADING RULES POSITION PAPERjwp@cit.org.auJeffrey ParishDocumentSummaryInformation8XCompObjjObjectPool0"0"  FMicrosoft Word Document MSWordDocWord.Document.89q՜.+,D՜.+,L hp|  -cit% ePUBLIC SUBMISSION TO WATER MARKET RULES POSITION PAPER BY CENTRAL IRRIGATION TRUST ON 15 AUGUST 2008