Under our draft decisions, increases in WAMC’s water management component charges would be limited to an average of 5% per year (i.e. 7.7% in year 1, 5% in year 2 and 5% in year 3) or 15.8% over the three years to 2027-28 (before inflation).
For customers on the Minimum Annual Charge (MAC), the increase in WAMC’s water management component would be limited to an average of 2.5% per year (i.e. 4.1% in year 1, 2.5% in year 2 and 2.5% in year 3) or 7.7% over the three years to 2027-28 (before inflation).
We received a high volume of submissions to our Issues Paper from stakeholders expressing concerns that the proposed increases in water charges (including those proposed by WAMC) could have significant detrimental impacts on water users, including agricultural and town water providers, and on regional and rural communities. In making our draft decisions we considered the affordability impacts of the proposed prices, opportunities to adjust projects, and how costs are shared between licence holders and the NSW Government.
In reaching our draft decisions, we also considered expert advice from Stantec on WAMC’s efficient capital and operating expenditure, and our legislative responsibilities.
Our draft decisions attempt to balance establishing the efficient costs of WAMC’s services and transitioning prices towards full cost reflective levels while mitigating the financial impact on water users.
We thank all stakeholders for their input
We sought feedback on our draft decisions and recommendations between 3 June and 1 July 2025. We thank all stakeholders for their input during this period. We will consider all submissions and survey responses before preparing and releasing our Final Report on WAMC’s prices from 1 October 2025.