IPART held a public hearing on 6 September 2022 on its draft decisions and recommendations for Essential Water and WaterNSW’s water and wastewater prices from 1 January 2023.



On 7 June 2022, we published our Draft Reports on the prices Essential Water can charge for water and wastewater services in Broken Hill and the surrounding areas of Menindee, Sunset Strip and Silverton from 1 January 2023.

We also published our Draft Reports on the prices WaterNSW can charge for water transportation services provided by the Murray River to Broken Hill Pipeline from 1 January 2023.

On 6 September 2022, we held a public hearing in Broken Hill. We invited customers and the community to have their say and ask IPART questions about our draft decisions. The public hearing was also a space for the community to ask questions to Essential Water and WaterNSW. We are grateful for everyone who joined and shared their input with the Tribunal. We will consider all feedback from the public hearing and submissions to make our final decisions.

The online public hearing had 3 sessions:

  • Session A was a discussion on key messages. IPART presented, and after was a questions and answer session.
  • Session B was a discussion on our Essential Water review. IPART and Essential Water presented, and after was a questions and answer session.
  • Session C was a discussion on our WaterNSW review. IPART and WaterNSW presented, and after was a questions and answer session.

Key themes raised by the community included customer affordability, the impact of inflation on bills and prices, the NSW Government’s Pipeline subsidy, and water quality.

Slides, video recordings and transcripts

Access the public hearing agenda, presentation slides, and video recording transcript here:

Stakeholders may make an access application to view public hearing video recording sessions A, B and C under the Government Information (Public Access) Act 2009.

We have listened to the community’s views and will consider all feedback to make our final decisions and recommendations. Our Final Reports and Determination will be published in November 2022.