With the end of the year quickly approaching, now is a good time to reflect on 2022 and look forward to the year ahead.
On reflection, it has been a year where we have taken significant strides forward across the business. A prime example of this is our renewed focus on eradicating water theft.
Reducing water theft benefits the large majority of customers who do the right thing; it ensures they are not penalised by others’ illegal actions.
The data shows the scale of our improvements: throughout the 2021/22 irrigation season, only 0.24 per cent of the water we delivered was unauthorised take, compared to 0.73 per cent in 2019/20.
This accounts for about 6000ML of stolen water that is no longer being taken from our customers.
Efficiencies like this have had a tangible impact in our pricing. In July, we released our 2022 Price List. Despite the Consumer Price Index spiking by 5.1 per cent, our prices only increased by an average of two per cent.
The stability in our prices is also the result of years of work streamlining the business to give our customers maximum value for money, as are the water shares we distributed as part of the Irrigators’ Share Distribution Project shortly afterward.
In August, nearly 6300 GMW customers with delivery shares below 0.25ML/day received a credit on their fixed charge bills thanks to the savings created by the Connections Project. This followed on from the 6500 customers with delivery shares above 0.25ML/day that received water shares in 2021.
Amid the financial benefits, we have also been striving to improve the services we offer. Our annual Winter Works Program was incredibly productive. It saw 22 channel banks refurbished, seven meters installed, and 10 irrigation structures repaired, all within the brief period between irrigation seasons.
The program also saw 230km of channel treated for weed.
We have seen some significant advancements in the way we treat weeds in recent years and in November were able to hold a conference with other water organisations where we were able to share our learnings on weed treatment.
Managing weeds in such an extensive channel network will always be a challenge, but I am confident we are now better equipped for that challenge than ever before.
Unfortunately, much of the recent months have been dedicated to flood response and recovery.
The damage caused by the floods has been significant and widespread, with parts of our region still experiencing flooding.
Despite this, it has been reassuring to see how quickly the recovery efforts have begun in the areas where the water has receded.
Already, our staff have inspected 626 regulators and more than 350km of channel network, as well as undertaking urgent works on levees and channels where needed.
The floods saw the postponement of some of the engagement activities we had planned for the development of our Pricing Submission 2024-28.
Before the floods, we had been engaging with different customer groups to learn more about how we can improve the services we offer them.
In 2023, we will be looking to learn more from our customers and present them with some options on our services as we prepare our submission to the Essential Services Commission.
In the meantime, many of our staff and customers will enjoy a well-deserved break. I wish all a safe and happy holiday season, and look forward to taking further strides forward in the New Year.