The Hon Ian Hunter South Australian Minister for Water and the River Murray heads a packed speaker list

The latest General Meeting of the Australian Water Brokers Association was held at the Adina Apartments conference rooms in Adelaide on 26 February 2018. The meeting was well attended, with more than 20 members and 15 guests attending. Speakers included:

• Hon Ian Hunter – SA Minister for Water and the River Murray
• Will Rayner – Rural Bank CFO
• Darren Ray – Bureau of Meteorology
• Chris Olszak – Aither
• Darryl Day – ICE-WaRM
• Yvette Colton – SA Department of Environment, Water and Natural Resources
• Simo Tervonen & Rod Carr – Marsden Jacobs

Ian Hunter was the first speaker of the day outlining South Australia’s position on the Murray-Darling Basin Plan given the recent dis-allowance motion passed in the Senate.

Rural Bank CFO Will Rayner gave a positive presentation about the strengths and long term investment prospects of the agriculture sector. He also touched on the challenges of financial institutions assessing security of water products outside of entitlement ownership and leasing.

Marsden Jacobs provided an update on the progress of waterflow.io which is being developed with $1M of Federal Government funding through the Business Research and Innovation Initiative (BRII) program.

Assistant Principal Policy Officer at South Australian Department of Environment, Water and Natural Resources led a discussion on updates on SA water market initiatives and register reform, asking questions and gaining feedback directly from brokers.

As always, Chris Olszak challenged attendees to consider the reasons for the increasing interest in international investment in water assets.