Welcome Letter

Dear Executive,

The rising cost of water in Australia is significant, driven by the scale of desalination development and infrastructure investment more broadly. Coupled with a combination of environmental costs, and issues around supply bottlenecks and customer usage patterns have resulted in an average of 18% increases in water bills for householders Australia wide this year, and price hikes on par in regional areas.

Regulatory bodies, utilities, irrigators and consumers alike are pushing for reform to moderate these price increases. Development of a coherent set of objectives is critical for Australia’s water sector – from the National Water Initiative and beyond, more measured and considered and more cost-reflective pricing to encourage a responsive market are both critical to reducing the steep incline in water costs.

Numerous challenges are hampering this effort, including socio-political and environmental issues such as rapid population growth and urban development, changing and growing consumer needs, wastewater and network infrastructure demands and increasing climate variability.

Coupled with institutional factors such as inadequate planning tools and processes to deal with variability, ownership structures and job roles which are sometimes unclear and incomplete, insufficient transparency, and the failure to properly assess, manage and distribute risk, the water pricing challenge is a difficult egg to crack.

• How can we change institutional and policy settings?
• Improve service delivery and price?
• Promote clearer cost-benefit analysis and cost sharing?
• Manage diverse stakeholder groups and their demands regarding water infrastructure development?
• Understand the economic climate and impacts on water infrastructure development and planning and make better decisions along these lines that aren’t reflexive and politically driven?

IIR's 9th Annual Water Pricing Summit will set out to address these questions and more.

I look forward to discussing them with you at this year's forum.

Warm regards,

Alicia Boyd
Conference Manager
IIR Conferences