EWON Insights Oct-Dec 2024

In this report

This quarter we focus on water complaints, including water pricing, water retail complaints, water network complaints and water quality.

EWON’s water members are:

• State-owned corporations – Sydney Water, Hunter Water, WaterNSW and Essential Water.

• Water Industry Competition Act 2006 (WICA) private water provider licensees – smaller entities typically supplying water to a single building or estate – currently less than 101.

• Membership is optional for councils that provide water to their residents – Shoalhaven Water operated by Shoalhaven City Council is an EWON member. For councils that do not join EWON, consumers need to make complaints to the NSW Ombudsman.

In FY24 EWON received 927 complaints about water, an increase of 21% compared to 768 in FY23.

Water complaints are quite different from the energy complaints EWON receives. Firstly, EWON does not have jurisdiction over all water providers, so we receive enquiries – typically less than 20% of total water complaints – about water providers outside EWON’s jurisdiction, such as local councils providing water to regional and rural areas.

Secondly, our water members provide both network services (pipes, easements, land access and other infrastructure) and retail services (water supply to the premises and billing) to their customers.  Billing complaints are few while more complex land and infrastructure complaints are not uncommon.

In this report we look at current regulatory reviews and the potential impacts this may have on customers, and explore complaints that customers raise in relation to retail and network issues.