Water Pricing

The Business Council of Australia’s report Water Under Pressure, launched last September, supported a price rise of between 50 and 100 per cent. The council said pricing was a key aspect of fixing Australia’s ‘mythical’ water shortage. “Australians, on average, pay four times more for their electricity than for their water,” the report says. “Consumers are not seeing prices that indicate a shortage.”

The council says that if water prices rose by between 50 and 100 per cent, it would pay for a range of new supply options. “At over $2 a kilolitre, desalination, sewage recycling, re-use of stormwater and the greater ability to fix leaking pipes all become economically feasible.”

From article titled ‘Dollar Dazzler’ by Rachel Kleinman, The Age, 19 March 2007, p. 10.