Thursday, 5 February 2026

 Melina BATH (Eastern Victoria) (12:10): My question is to the Minister for Water. Greater Western Water’s annual report confirms its new billing and payment system ‘did not work’, causing widespread failures and impacting customers’ service delivery and privacy. After Greater Western Water was forced to fund a $130 million remediation package, how many of its customers are still waiting to receive compensation or remediation payments?

 Gayle TIERNEY (Western Victoria – Minister for Skills and TAFE, Minister for Water) (12:11): I thank Ms Bath for her interest in terms of GWW. There has been a renewed focus in terms of customer focus at GWW, and I wish to inform the house there is also a new head for GWW. The new managing director is Cameron FitzGerald, who is a very well known person in the water sector. He comes from Southern Rural and before that other water corporations as well. I have had an opportunity to meet with him and reaffirm the fact that customer satisfaction and customer focus are my main priority in terms of making sure that the issues that GWW have been dealing with for some time are their focus. That is why extra staff have been put on. There have been walk-in arrangements at various GWW offices.

You are quite correct, Ms Bath; I have informed the house already that there is a $130 million concession arrangement for customers that was offered to the independent regulator, the Essential Services Commission. My understanding is that progress is being made in relation to the billing. In terms of the actual finer details that you are asking about, again, they are very operational, but I am more than happy to provide that information to you. I can say that roughly four in five residential customer accounts are already up to date, and the return-to-service plan has clear timetables for returning all customers to normal billing cycles.

 Melina BATH (Eastern Victoria) (12:13): The same annual report notes that the Essential Services Commission has issued an enforceable undertaking requiring Greater Western Water to fix faults in the billing system, with the improvements expected over three years. Minister, why will it take three years to restore reliable billing and service standards for customers, and what will you do to expedite the process?

 Gayle TIERNEY (Western Victoria – Minister for Skills and TAFE, Minister for Water) (12:13): There are a number of things that we have done to expedite the process. First of all, we made sure that there was the commissioning of the review, and the Noone review went about its business and provided the return-to-service plan. We have made sure that there has been a change of personnel in respect to a whole range of things. We have also made sure, as I have said, that there are more face-to-face service arrangements. We have also of course made sure that there is a very clear process for handling complaints. But also a number of people have been employed to manually look at the issues around the billing process, not just reliant in terms of the IT system as such. In terms of the return-to-service plan the objective is to have a number of issues sorted out around about June, July this year. That is what they are working towards. We are wanting the return-to-service plan adhered to, and that will be absolutely sorted way before the predicted three years.