Almost every entry on this site argues for a step to be removed, merged, resequenced or thresholded. This one is an addition, it is already law, and it is recorded because a database that only ever wanted less process would be an advocacy organisation.

The ACCC's 2021 inquiry into Murray-Darling Basin water markets made 29 recommendations. It described a market of substantial value with far less integrity infrastructure than any comparable financial market: participants holding non-public information about allocations, storage and government purchasing; trades reported slowly and inconsistently; and no effective conduct rules.

Regulations were made in March 2026 for commencement on 1 July 2026. From that date, participants carry obligations concerning water markets decisions, certain trade conduct is prohibited — including market manipulation and insider trading — and the ACCC enforces it.

Why this belongs in a red tape database. Because the honest version of this project's method has to be able to conclude that a market needed more rules, not fewer. A water market where the Commonwealth is itself a major buyer through environmental recovery, and where participants could trade on information others did not have, was not a free market. It was an opaque one, and opacity is a subsidy to whoever holds the information.

And the timeline is worth defending. Five years from inquiry to commencement looks slow, and this site has criticised delay throughout. It has also criticised the Housing Australia Future Fund for opening a $10 billion program before its governance was settled. Both cannot be right unless the distinction is drawn properly: settling the rules before you switch a regime on is worth the time it takes. Water markets did that. This site should say so.

What remains. Conduct rules govern behaviour in the market. They do not create a national view of who holds what, which is the other half of the ACCC's diagnosis and has not been done.