Despite reports of serious misconduct by water brokers and some legal proceedings pending in NSW, a report for the National Water Commission released today says the claims of misconduct are not widespread and there is no need to introduce a licensing scheme for brokers or for substantial new regulatory measures.
The paper by Allen Consulting says a high proportion of the concerns about brokers and water exchanges raised during consultation on the report “relate to ‘teething problems’ symptomatic of developing markets”.
Many of these could be resolved without additional regulation and market forces are likely to weed out fraudulent operators, it says.
href="http://www.allenconsult.com.au/publications/download.php?id=318&type=pdf&file=1"target="_blank">Improving Market Confidence In Water Intermediaries (The Allen Consulting Group, Waterlines Occasional Paper No. 3, July 2007)
