WA’s Department of Water is at loggerheads with fellow state body, the Water Corporation, over its request for an expansion of its operating licence.
In a submission to the state’s Economic Regulation Authority, the Water Corp asked for its operating licence to be extended so it could offer water and sewerage services across virtually all of the state.
The corporation said that expanding its approved operating area to match so-called controlled areas would prevent it from breaching the terms of its operating licence, which bar it from providing services outside its defined operating area.
Consequently, each time a customer requested water and sewerage services outside of the corporation’s operating area, it needed to undergo a time consuming and costly approval process with the ERA “with limited benefit to customers or the regulatory environment”.
Approving the extension would increase efficiency and reduce costs for “the corporation, its customers and the land development and building industries”.
But the Department of Water has opposed the corporation’s request on the grounds that water service providers had an obligation to provide timely supply services within its entire defined operating area, and that an extension could be anti-competitive.
The department said current policy factored in a margin for growth to accommodate areas where the service provider expected to provide services “in a reasonable timeframe”.
But extending the operating area further could potentially provide the corporation with a competitive advantage over other potential operators that had not yet declared a service in the area.
In separate submissions, Bunbury supplier Aqwest and Busselton Water argued their operating areas should also be extended if the request was approved.