Napthine/Walsh – Coalition delivers lower household water bills

.Melbourne families to save $100 per year on future water bills
.Fairer Water Bills delivers more than $1 billion in savings from water
corporations
.Victorian Coalition Government delivers on promise to lower household
bills

Melbourne households will save hundreds of dollars on future water bills thanks to the Victorian Coalition Government’s successful Fairer Water Bills initiative, Premier Denis Napthine and Minister for Water Peter Walsh announced today.

“The Victorian Coalition Government’s Fairer Water Bills initiative is delivering more than $1 billion of savings that will be made across Victoria’s urban water sector over the next four years,” Dr Napthine said.

“These savings will translate into bill reductions of approximately $100 a year for Melbourne households for each of the next four years.

“The Victorian Coalition Government is absolutely committed to driving down cost of living pressures and our Fairer Water Bills initiative will deliver real savings for family budgets.

“Fairer Water Bills adds to the Victorian Coalition Government’s strong record of initiatives that are being introduced to help ease the cost of living for Victoria families, like flexible pricing for electricity bills, more affordable public transport, an increased first home buyers stamp duty concession, and more than doubling the budget for utilities concessions to $508 million.”

Minister Walsh said there was a stark contrast between the Victorian Coalition Government’s delivery of real savings and Daniel Andrews’ Labor Party, which had caused household water bills to skyrocket with costly, knee-jerk decisions like the Desalination Plant and the North-South pipeline.

“Customers of regional urban water corporations will also see the benefits of Fairer Water Bills, and the regional Boards will be making determinations in the coming weeks on how these benefits will be passed on to customers,” Mr Walsh said.

“The efficiencies identified across all water corporations include both capital cost savings and operational cost savings.

“Importantly, these savings will be delivered without compromising service standards or existing hardship protections that assist vulnerable customers.”

Through Fairer Water Bills, the Victorian Coalition Government asked water corporations to provide advice on potential productivity and efficiency gains within their businesses which could be adopted to help deliver lower household water bills.

The proposals have been independently reviewed and scrutinised, accepted by the water corporations, and will now be included in each authority’s Corporate Plan for 2014-15.

“I thank each of Victoria’s urban water corporations for working cooperatively with the Office of Living Victoria and the independent review team, which was led by Professor Graeme Samuel AC,” Mr Walsh said.

The water corporations will continue to work together to identify further improvements across the sector that will benefit all Victorians.