IPART is reviewing the maximum prices that the Water Administration Ministerial Corporation (WAMC) can charge customers to provide water planning, management and regulation services. The Tribunal will publish a Final Report with final pricing decisions in September 2025. The prices we set in this review will apply from 1 October 2025 to 30 June 2028.
We recognise that access to safe, reliable and affordable water at a fair price is critical to our communities, environment and economy
Customers should pay only what WAMC requires to efficiently deliver the services its customers need. Our aim is to hold WAMC accountable in a way that delivers good short, medium, and long-term customer outcomes.
Under the IPART Act, when reviewing water prices, we are required to consider a range of matters, including:
- the cost of providing the service
- consumer protection against abuse of monopoly power by a water utility
- the need for greater efficiency in the supply of the service to reduce costs to consumers and taxpayers
- appropriate rates of return on public sector assets
- the social impact of our determinations
- the need to maintain ecologically sustainable development and protect the environment.
We have published our Draft Report
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).
For customers subject to MDBA and BRC charges, our draft decision is to maintain these charges in line with inflation over the period 2025-26 to 2027-28.
We will also continue to apply water take charges to floodplain harvesting licences and introduce an additional water management charge for floodplain harvesting to help recover WaterNSW’s incremental floodplain harvesting costs.
Additionally, we will revise the structure and level of metering charges to reflect our assessment of efficient costs.
In reaching our draft decisions, we considered all feedback received from stakeholders at our Public Hearing and through submissions to our Issues Paper, along with our legislative responsibilities.
We received a high volume of submissions from stakeholders expressing concerns that the proposed increases in water charges (including those proposed by WAMC) could have significant impacts on water users, including agricultural and town water providers and on regional and rural communities. In making our draft decisions the Tribunal has considered the affordability impacts of the proposed prices, opportunities to adjust projects, and how costs are shared between licence holders and the NSW Government.
We welcome comments from all stakeholders - including WAMC’s customers, and the broader community - on our draft decisions. You can provide feedback on our draft decisions and recommendations until 1 July 2025 by making a submission.
The following links provide more information on how we review and determine water prices and about the water businesses that we regulate.