Purpose: Design the engagement plan and build awareness on the Price Submission and water literacy.

Engagement activities 

Performance accountability – 2026 Customer Assessment Panel (“Did we deliver?”): Report back transparently on performance under the current pricing period to the Customer Assessment Panel to build credibility.  

Online customer and community survey: Planning for the Annual Regional Water Alliance customer insights survey gathering sentiment on water reliability, billing preferences, and environmental sustainability. 

Validate outcomes from current pricing period: drawing on insights from the past, by analysing all available qualitative data including customer comments and feedback received across all channels. 

Early Traditional Owner and First Nations engagement: culturally safe conversations with Traditional Owner Corporations and the First Nations community to understand values around land and waterway stewardship, removing barriers to participation and investing in developing partnerships.

Outputs 

Validation Research Report. 

Insights from validation research will be used to refine Westernport Water’s engagement approach, confirm and deliver the customer and community engagement program, identify priority issues and emerging customer concerns, and inform the annual customer satisfaction survey in October 2026.

Purpose: Deepen understanding of customer needs and priorities by reviewing existing insights, running surveys, and engaging in community settings.

Activities 

Performance Accountability (“Did we deliver?”): Report back transparently on performance under the current pricing period to build credibility. 

PS28 Online customer and community survey to understand values and expectations plus Annual Regional Water Alliance customer insights survey in October. 

Broad outreach: interviews, stakeholder and community workshops, pop up events across service region, multicultural and diverse engagement

Ongoing engagement with Traditional Owners.

Purpose: Unpack complex choices, trade-offs between service levels and bills, and deep consultation with targeted groups. Together, these activities will support the development and testing of a draft customer outcomes framework.

Engagement activities 

Customer Deliberative Panels: engage with representative panels of residential and business customers to evaluate price vs. service level scenarios.

Focus groups and roundtables: working with financial counsellors, local community support agencies, and vulnerable customer advocates to co-design hardship programs and tariff structures. Test proposals with developers about new customer contributions in accordance with our NCC Project Plan. and trade waste customers on capital infrastructure requirements and charges. 

First Nations & Traditional Owner Engagement: test proposed tangible self-determined outcomes that reflect Traditional Owner priorities. 

Getting to fair interviews: targeted stakeholder meetings that explore perceptions of fairness, priorities and trade-offs related to service levels, investment and pricing. They provide qualitative insights that help shape customer outcomes and inform decision-making. 

Apply engagement data and insights: inform the draft outcomes Westernport Water propose to deliver in the price submission. 

Close the loop and ongoing engagement: finalise the proposed package, close the loop with participants and prepare the PS28 submission.

Output

Price Submission