While 2024 has generally been quite dry, much of our region experienced flash flooding at the start of the new year.
The first nine days of January marked the wettest start to a year our region has seen since records began in 1900.
Intense rainfall was immediately followed by an exceptionally dry period.
Despite these extremes, we have continued to offer our customers stability by maintaining our prices while upholding our service levels.
In March, we announced we would be closing our Pyramid Hill customer service centre and merging it with our Kerang office.
Our Kyabram and Cobram sites were closed, and their services integrated with existing offices at Rochester and Shepparton later in the year.
Staffing numbers remain unchanged, and because we still offer all customers the option to come into our centres, do business online, over the phone or at their own properties, the service level we offer has also remained unchanged.
However, we no longer have the overhead expenses associated with these three sites, allowing us to operate more efficiently as a business.
Efficiencies such as these were a key theme in our 2024-28 Price Submission, which the Essential Services Commission approved in June.
The submission outlines our fees and services for the next four-year regulatory period.
At the start of the previous regulatory period, we announced a landmark 10 per cent decrease in our average customer bills.
Pleasingly, despite G-MW enduring a major pandemic and multiple floods in the proceeding years, we have been able to keep our prices steady, with our new Price Submission seeing the average customer bill rise by less than one per cent before CPI.
At the same time as our Price Submission was being finalised, we were in the midst of our annual Winter Works program.
The program takes place during the irrigation off-season, providing a short window where we can move water around our system to complete various maintenance tasks.
This year’s program was incredibly productive.
During the three-month program, we directly treated 270km of channel for aquatic weed, refurbished channels at 19 different sites, completed 15 structure refurbishments, and completed various other projects.
We were fortunate that we had favourable weather for much of the program, but the dedication of our staff and contractors were the main factor in a highly productive off-season.
Partway through the program we installed the 100th flume gate that we had repaired through our Flume Gate Replacement Program, and now as we approach the end of the year, we have just installed our 200th.
The program sees us remove broken or damaged flume gates from our channel network and refurbish them at our Tatura workshop before reinstalling them.
New flume gates typically cost between $35,000 and $80,000, whereas the average cost of replacing one at our workshop is $5000
Implementing this program has saved G-MW millions of dollars and is exactly the type of innovation we continue to pursue so we can continue offering our customers maximum value for money.
The new year will see us adopt a new model for our customer committees.
In October, the G-MW Board approved a change to the model that will see the 12 existing Water Service Committees replaced with seven customer committees.
The new committee model will reflect the diverse range of G-MW customers and will be designed to be collaborative and strategic, and with a manageable time commitment for members.
Expressions of interest for the new customer committees will open early in the new year and are a great opportunity for customers wanting to contribute to a thriving northern Victoria.
More information about the committees is available on our YourSay page: yoursay.gmwater.com.au/customer-committees
– Charmaine Quick is G-MW’s managing director.
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