Irrigation price investigation 2020–24

On 29 October 2018, the Treasurer and Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Partnerships directed us to investigate pricing practices relating to the monopoly business activities of Sunwater and Seqwater undertaken for irrigation services. The key objective of the investigation was to recommend irrigation prices for the period 1 July 2020 to 30 June 2024.

On 31 October 2018, we released a notice of investigation to announce the commencement of our investigation and a guidance note to assist stakeholders with their submissions. We also published a targeted consultation paper on apportioning dam safety upgrade costs.

Submissions from Sunwater and Seqwater on proposed costs (and supporting information) were due by 30 November 2018. We also invited stakeholders to make initial submissions by 30 November 2018 to identify issues they thought should be considered as part of this investigation.

We completed our initial round of regional workshops in February 2019. Stakeholder submissions on the businesses’ submissions and dam safety consultation paper were due by 8 March 2019.

We published our draft report on 9 September 2019 and undertook a series of workshops in regional Queensland on our draft report in September/October 2019. Submissions on our draft report and Sunwater’s supplementary submissions were due by 4 November 2019.

We would like to thank all of the stakeholders who participated in our consultation process, including those that attended our workshops and made submissions. We published and considered all submissions in preparing our final report.