… that has been published for public comment

“We are pleased that the Economic Regulator has acknowledged the importance of managing the complex price transition for customers to a level playing field, while balancing the need to invest in aging and non-performing infrastructure across the State” CEO Mike Brewster said.

“As the regulator has stated, fully addressing the issues facing us across the state will require significant time and capital investment” Mr Brewster said.

The Regulator’s consultants also acknowledge the significant capital expenditure challenge ahead of us to fix ageing and non-performing assets.

“Our submission to the Regulator at the end of August was focussed on delivering equity and fairness through achieving a level playing field for all customers, and delivering better services and outcomes for Tasmanians for the long term” Mr Brewster said.

“We proposed an acceleration of the transition to equitable prices while managing customer impacts, and we are pleased that the Regulator has accepted the need for acceleration and our proposed methodology for managing price shocks” he said.

“However we need to test their amended proposal on how it might impact on the broader sustainability of the business and customers”.

“Whilst noting that this is a draft report only, we are concerned about the basis and assumptions used by the Regulator for arriving at their revenue conclusions, and the potential future impacts on our ability to sustainably operate our business and fix aging and underperforming assets. ”

TasWater’s projected profits are in line with the $27M reported in this year’s results, which supports funding its capital program and providing a modest return to owners.

“We now look forward to working through the Regulator’s proposal to understand how it supports us in achieving sustainable long term outcomes for the Tasmanian community” he said.

We encourage interested members of the community, business and stakeholders to take up the opportunity to review the Regulator’s Draft Report and provide written submissions, at www.economicregulator.tas.gov.au.

Simon Pilkington, TasWater