Labor is calling on the premier to intervene in TasWater’s pricing after a northern engineering business’s monthly bill jumped from $625 to $3,800.
HB Engineering owner Stuart Boyd said the increase, which arrived on the business’s July bill, would add about $40,000 a year to its costs.
“We now as a business need to find a way to cover those extra costs,” he said.
Boyd said the increase was on the business’s sewerage charge, on top of about $24,000 a year it already paid for water.
He said the family-owned manufacturing business employed 35 people and would turn 21 in November.
Boyd said TasWater had offered a payment plan and suggested the business reduce the size of its pipe connection.
He said that would require building surveyors, engineers and design work and ripping out core infrastructure.
“It does not make sense to me at all,” he said.
Boyd said the business would need to find efficiencies, because raising its prices risked it becoming less competitive.
Opposition Leader Josh Willie said businesses across the state were facing bill shock.
“TasWater, in a cost of living crisis and a cost of doing business crisis, is hiking up prices that are unreasonable on businesses and businesses are struggling to cope,” he said.
Willie said a government representative had approved TasWater’s corporate plan, which included the pricing structure.
“The premier cannot wash his hands of this,” he said.
“We’re calling on the premier to exert more influence over TasWater.”
Labor said the corporate plan proposed a 40% price increase alongside a 50% increase in council dividends.
The Tasmanian Economic Regulator rejected TasWater’s proposed increases of about 40% over four years in May, instead approving rises of 5.7% a year from July.
TasWater has said it does not set its own prices, which are independently regulated.
Dividends to councils are forecast to fall from $26 million this year to $24 million next financial year.
TasWater has deferred about $500 million in capital works after the regulator’s decision and will still invest about $1.2 billion over four years.
A government spokesperson said the government had called on TasWater and councils to agree to pause the price increases.
“We are a 10% shareholder of TasWater, with local government holding the majority 90% share,” the spokesperson said.
“Our government tried to take over TasWater, but Josh Willie and the Greens blocked it.”
TasWater General Manager Customer and Community Callan Paske said the utility recognised “the scale and impact of water and sewerage price increases for some non-residential customers”.
He said TasWater was “actively consulting with the Government and Tasmanian Economic Regulator on options to minimise those impacts”.
