Cotton Australia is strongly encouraging Queensland growers to take up the Queensland Government’s Irrigation Pricing Rebate Scheme, which offers eligible businesses a 15% rebate on water bills from Seqwater or Sunwater (including Burnett Water) for the 2025–26 and 2026–27 financial years.

The rebate is available to owner-operated irrigation businesses that earn primary production income. The offer has been open for 12 months now, but take-up is extremely slow.

Cotton Australia General Manager said, while eligible water users could wait until as late as December 2027 to apply and receive a single rebate payment on two full years of irrigation water charges, getting the process in place now has its advantages.

“The application through QRIDA has been made as simple as a government process allows, and growers need to be aware that the Qld Government has flagged significant changes to how rural water is charged from the start of the 2028–2029 water year,” Mr Murray said.

“As we understand it, from then on, only irrigators that have been approved for this rebate and certified as genuine irrigators will be eligible for the regulated charges. Other users will be negotiating directly with Sunwater or SeqWater,” Mr Murray said.

“I would also encourage irrigators to apply now, as the lack of applications could be seen by government as an indication that this support is not valued by Queensland irrigators.”

“The following table shows the uptake to date across Sunwater schemes, and the uptake with SeqWater schemes is even lower.”