The Justice and Equity Centre provided a submission to IPART in response to the Draft Report on Sydney Water Prices for 2025-30. We had previously provided a detailed response to Sydney Water’s Pricing Proposal and IPART’s Issues Paper in December 2024. The JEC is a member of Sydney Waters Customer and Community Reference Group (CCRG) and has been an active stakeholder in Sydney Water’s ‘Our Water, Our Voice’ customer engagement strategy for this Pricing Proposal.
We welcome IPARTs focus on affordability in the Draft, and the intent to ensure that Sydney households are assuming only those costs necessary to ensure the ongoing efficient, dependable and safe operation and growth of Sydney Water’s operations. Notwithstanding these efforts, the Draft involves significant uplifts in expenditure and bills, with the likelihood these trends will continue for the foreseeable future. As noted in our previous submission, we consider it necessary to review how costs – particularly those related to step-change investment increases in growth and system augmentation – are determined and recovered. We question whether it is reasonable or sustainable to continue to assume that consumers are best placed to bear the full cost on bills of major investments upgrading and expanding water infrastructure.
Our submission to the Draft provides feedback on IPART’s draft decisions and recommendations, with a focus on capital expenditure decisions and affordability of water services.
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