A water services provider must have a written procedure to investigate and resolve customer complaints relating to water services.
A provider is required to acknowledge your complaint within 10 business days of receiving it and must respond to your complaint by addressing the matters in it within 20 business days, starting from the day the complaint was received.
You can seek a review of a decision or complaint by the Energy and Water Ombudsman. Providers must provide you with the Ombudsman's details unless you indicate that the complaint has been resolved to your satisfaction.
There are different types of complaints or disputes that you may experience as a water customer. If the matter is about water services - that is sewerage, irrigation, drainage or water supply services - it is considered a water service complaint. Otherwise, it is a general consumer complaint.
| Examples of water service complaints | Examples of general consumer complaints |
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General consumer complaint
If you have a general consumer complaint, you should contact the business that you purchased the goods or services from in the first instance. If the dispute is not resolved, you can contact the Department of Local Government, Industry Regulation and Safety (Consumer Protection) Advice Line on 1300 30 40 54.
TIP - Am I making a complaint or a query?
A complaint is an expression of dissatisfaction made to or about an organisation, related to its products, services, staff or the handling of a complaint, for which a response or resolution is explicitly or implicitly expected or legally required.
A query is a request by a customer for information about a product or service provided by the service provider. In a query the customer is not seeking a resolution or expressing dissatisfaction.
Water service query or complaint
If the query, complaint or dispute is about a licensed water service provider, contact the organisation directly in the first instance. This includes for supply of potable (drinkable) or non-potable water, and for drainage, wastewater or sewerage services.
Each licensed provider must develop and use a standard complaints and dispute resolution procedure, in line with the Standards Australia AS/NZS 10002:2022 (as updated from time to time).
The licensed water service provider is required to acknowledge the complaint within 10 business days. They must also respond to you within 20 business days, addressing the matters in the complaint.
If the matter is not resolved with the licensed water service provider, you can take the complaint to the Energy and Water Ombudsman.
The Energy and Water Ombudsman
The Energy and Water Ombudsman provides free, independent complaint resolution services for customers of licensed water service providers.
The Energy and Water Ombudsman only deals with water service complaints (such as billing, disconnection or debt recovery). The Energy and Water Ombudsman cannot investigate general consumer complaints, or complaints about price setting.
At the end of an investigation, you and your service provider may agree on a resolution. However, if you cannot agree, the Energy and Water Ombudsman has the authority to make a binding decision up to a value of $20,000, or up to $50,000 with the agreement of your service provider.
The Energy and Water Ombudsman cannot deal with complaints that are being, or should be, dealt with by a court or tribunal.
The Energy and Water Ombudsman reports licence breaches to the ERA.
Economic Regulation Authority
The ERA does not investigate individual complaints by customers. However, it can investigate and deal with breaches by licensees (e.g. water service providers) of the conditions of the licence.
Other water queries
If you have a query about how the State’s water resources are planned, managed and developed to meet community requirements, please visit the Department of Water and Environmental Regulation (DWER) water licensing webpage.