In keeping with the South-East Queensland Water (Distribution and Retail Restructuring) Act 2009, the statutory authority owned by the City of Moreton Bay, Sunshine Coast Council and Noosa Shire Council, has determined customer prices annually through its independent Board.
Unitywater Chair Michael Arnett said the utility’s price setting track record demonstrated its commitment to acting in the best interests of its customers.
“Unitywater’s Board have managed to keep prices low and stable over the last 15 years, while continuing to invest in critical water and sewer infrastructure and improve services,” said Mr Arnett.
“Unitywater’s commitment to efficiency enabled this and by working smarter we were able to manage costs to become one of the most efficient water businesses in Australia, despite escalating operating, financing and construction costs.
“Looking forward, we have committed to providing a secure and stable price path for our customers.”
Analysis published in the Bureau of Meteorology’s National Performance Report 2023-24: Urban water utilities, shows that Unitywater’s network and service performance is among the best of the 15 comparable major water utilities around Australia, resulting in limited disruption to the region’s households, and businesses connected to the important tourism-based economy in its service region.
Unitywater CEO Anna Jackson said the State Government’s Shaping SEQ Regional Plan projects an additional 525,000 people moving into Unitywater’s service region over the next 20 years, which represents 5.4 per cent of Australia’s total population growth and is the largest share of growth anywhere across the country.
“Increased housing availability requires significant investment in both trunk water and sewer infrastructure,” said Ms Jackson.
“At this stage there is a planned $1.3 billion over five years to be invested into growth infrastructure to unlock new homes for this future population.
“Private sector developers contribute up to 30 per cent of this cost, with the remainder funded by existing and future Unitywater customers.
“We continue to request and would actively welcome the State Government lifting the cap on the maximum allowable charge to developers per lot for this infrastructure, in order to bridge the gap of cost currently borne by all Unitywater customers.
“We are also investing in our wastewater treatment plants so they can service a larger population in order to remain within environmental licence overseen by the Department of Environment, Tourism, Science and Innovation.”
Another component of the Unitywater customer bill is the bulk water charge and repayment of the historical water grid debt, which sees more than $250 million passed back to State Government-owned Seqwater each year, or one quarter of the total Unitywater bill.
Ms Jackson said Unitywater’s financial management practices have reflected and continue to reflect the building blocks used by economic regulatory bodies like the Queensland Competition Authority to determine prudent and efficient operating expenditure, returns on assets and the resulting price for our customers.
“Annual reviews from the Queensland Audit Office and Queensland Treasury Corporation, along with reporting to our shareholders, have provided robust and public assurance of the past and future performance of the business.
“We expect the price monitoring process validates our approach of taking a long-term view for our customers, ensuring reliable services for our customers of today, while progressively investing to ensure the networks are there to reliably serve the new homes and appropriate environmental outcomes needed for our customers of tomorrow, as required by both State and local planning schemes.”
