When I joined Goulburn-Murray Water about five years ago, the corporation was beginning an enormous transformation.
Through reconfiguring the business and streamlining how we manage our assets, we were able to reduce our annual revenue requirements by more than $15 million during the 2020-24 regulatory period.
G-MW is a non-profit authority — our pricing is structured to recover the costs of the services we provide and to maintain the assets needed to deliver these services.
This meant that in reducing the revenue requirements we were also able to reduce customer bills.
Our landmark price submission for the 2020-24 regulatory period saw a 10 per cent reduction to our average customer fees.
It was a huge effort from people across G-MW to create the savings that enabled this price drop, however, we were always aware it would be a similarly huge effort to keep our prices stable after such a significant change.
This would become all the more difficult with the various challenges we faced during the 2020-24 regulatory period.
As with so many organisations, the pandemic presented a major obstacle, and adjustments were made throughout G-MW to ensure we could continue providing customers with the same level of service, while also keeping our staff and customers safe.
We then faced a very different type of challenge with the widespread flooding in October 2022, and then further floods in October 2023 and January 2024.
Again, we had to adapt, with many staff undertaking flood response work while floods were impacting their own properties and communities.
Throughout these challenges, I have been very thankful for the commitment of our staff and the dedication they have shown to supporting our customers and our region.
It was therefore very rewarding when last month the Essential Services Commission (ESC) approved our price submission for the 2024-28 regulatory period, with the submission ensuring G-MW’s average prices would, in general, increase by less than one per cent over the next four years before inflation.
This is a fantastic outcome for our customers, as it guarantees stable pricing for the next four years.
The new price submission will see many gravity irrigation customers experience a steady or lower typical bill before inflation, and some medium and large gravity irrigation customers experiencing slight increases.
We have managed to achieve this without relaxing our service standards, meaning that despite the lower prices, customers enjoy the same level of service.
We went to great lengths to ensure these services were reflective of our customers’ priorities, as we began engaging with customers for our 2024-28 price submission back in 2021.
Over the course of our extensive engagement period, we spoke to customers of all types and received some excellent feedback that helped shape our price submission.
The message from our customers was loud and clear — they wanted simpler, fairer, consistent pricing.
The ESC subsequently found that G-MW had “engaged well with its customers and community and provided a pricing plan which focused on efficiencies and minimising costs”.
I am very grateful for all those who shared their feedback with us over this time.
The contributions of our customers have been invaluable and I look forward to continue working with them in this new regulatory period.
Charmaine Quick is the G-MW managing director.