Customer Update -IPART water price review Information Paper released today
14 May 2025
The NSW Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal (IPART) has today released an Information Paper relating to its review of WaterNSW prices for bulk water supply in regional and rural NSW.
Key points from this paper include:
- The draft decision from IPART is to reject the 213% increases proposed by WaterNSW over 5 years.
- As a result, IPART proposes shorter-term (3-year) determinations for both the WaterNSW Greater Sydney and Rural Valleys (this includes the Murray Valley) price reviews to allow WaterNSW to continue providing its bulk water services while more work is done to assess its proposed levels of expenditure.
- Under the draft decision, prices for WaterNSW Rural Valleys customers would increase by 1.9% plus inflation from 1 July 2025, and then by inflation only on 1 July 2026 and 1 July 2027. This includes WaterNSW’s proposed costs for the Dams Safety Levy, crane and electrical safety expenditure.
- Based on significant inflation in the past 12 months, this will equate to approximately a 5-7% increase in prices this year, compared to the originally proposed tripling over 5 years.
- Murray Irrigation notes that a smaller component of Government charges (WAMC) is due to be released in June 2025.
Releasing the Information Paper today, IPART has stated:
“In reaching our draft decisions, we have taken a range of factors into account including all feedback received from stakeholders at our Public Hearing and through submissions to our Issues Paper, and independent experts’ reviews.”
Murray Irrigation would like to thank customers for taking the time to complete submissions to the IPART issues paper in November 2024. There were 230 submissions in total, including a large number from the Murray Valley. These have assisted IPART in reaching the conclusions outlined in today's Information Paper.
Customers are encouraged to respond to the Information Paper and have until 3 June to do so.
Murray Irrigation will be preparing a response to this Information Paper. We will keep customers updated on how we respond as we work through the Information Paper in more detail.
Once our response is complete, it will be shared via
Talking Water
and on the submissions page of the company website here.
To view Murray Irrigation's response to this review process to date, please see our submission and previous Customer Updates below:
Murray Irrigation will continue to update customers with new information regarding this matter as it comes to hand.
Customers can also receive direct updates from IPART with news about the price review process by subscribing at the following link: https://confirmsubscription.com/h/t/E72C401D6224CE8D
More information is available on IPART's website: https://www.ipart.nsw.gov.au/Home/Industries/Water
