{"id":772652,"date":"2026-07-01T18:47:24","date_gmt":"2026-07-01T18:47:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/772652\/"},"modified":"2026-07-01T18:47:24","modified_gmt":"2026-07-01T18:47:24","slug":"power-water-and-sewerage-prices-across-the-nt-increase-by-5-3-per-cent-from-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/772652\/","title":{"rendered":"Power, water and sewerage prices across the NT increase by 5.3 per cent from today"},"content":{"rendered":"

Power, water and sewerage prices in the Northern Territory will rise by 5.3 per cent from today, higher than last financial year’s 3 per cent increase.<\/p>\n

The three major utilities in the NT are publicly-owned and their price fluctuations are dictated by the territory government’s treasurer.<\/p>\n

Usually loosely tied to inflation, today’s price hike is larger than than the usual 3 per cent and has been criticised by the NT opposition and the body representing senior Territorians.<\/p>\n

Treasurer Bill Yan said the 5.3 per cent increase was in line with the 5.2 per cent inflation figure forecast for June in the NT budget, handed down in May.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Bill Yan said the increase was in line with the 5.2 per cent inflation figure forecast for June. (ABC News: Pete Garnish)<\/p>\n

The actual June CPI figure has not yet been published by Treasury, but in the year to May, inflation rose in Darwin by 3.9 per cent.<\/p>\n

“When we were formulating the budget, we do projections on CPI … and they’re printed in our budget papers at 5.2 per cent [for the year to June],” Mr Yan said.<\/p>\n

“As we were working out what the forecasts were going to look like, we landed at 5.3 per cent for our [power] tariff changes.<\/p>\n

“So, there’s a 0.1 per cent difference between those figures, which is absolutely minimal.”<\/p>\n

\"Power<\/p>\n

This year’s power price rise is higher than last financial year’s 3 per cent increase. (ABC News: Dane Hirst)<\/p>\n

While the price of power will rise for customers, the NT government is also paying more to subsidise prices.<\/p>\n

Its community service obligation subsidy will increase by more than $58 million in 2026-27 to $252 million.<\/p>\n

“If we took away the the community service obligation, people’s residential power prices would increase by 74 per cent,” Mr Yan said.<\/p>\n

“It would cost over $2,000 extra for every mum and dad’s power bill across the Territory [each year] if we removed the community service obligation.”<\/p>\n

Mr Yan said the increase in the community service obligation was due to higher gas prices the NT government is paying suppliers.<\/p>\n

Eni’s Blacktip gas field was meant to supply the NT with its energy needs until 2031, but it started drying up in 2021.<\/p>\n

That shortfall has forced the government to buy emergency gas from exporters Santos and Inpex, at much higher prices, to keep the lights on.<\/p>\n

\"Evening<\/p>\n

The government was forced to buy emergency gas from exporter Inpex. (ABC News: Dane Hirst)<\/p>\n

Mr Yan said the gas expected to be supplied from the Beetaloo Basin in the second half of this year would come at “good rates”.<\/p>\n

“I can’t tell anybody what [the rates] are, of course they are commercial in confidence, but we’ll start to see a reduction in cost of generation as we see some of that cheaper gas coming into Darwin out of the Beetaloo,” he said.<\/p>\n

Price hike criticised by Labor, seniors<\/p>\n

The 5.3 per cent price increase is also higher than the 2.6 per cent wage growth forecast in May’s budget.<\/p>\n

Opposition Leader Selena Uibo said the NT government should have increased the community service obligation subsidy.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Selena Uibo says the NT government should absorb more of the costs. (ABC News: Marcus Kennedy)<\/p>\n

“The CLP government has already admitted it can absorb these costs,” she said.<\/p>\n

“It chose how much to absorb, and how much to pass on to households.”<\/p>\n

Mr Yan said the government did consider lowering the 5.3 per cent hike, but ultimately decided against it.<\/p>\n

“Those considerations were there, but if you look at a 5.3 per cent change on your residential tariffs, it’s not a lot,” he said.<\/p>\n

“It’s really not going to hurt Territorians too much in the back pocket.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“I don’t make light of that of course.”<\/p>\n

Council of the Ageing NT chief executive Sue Shearer said the price increase was “not fair” and pensioners would be reluctant to turn on energy-intensive air conditioners in the territory heat.<\/p>\n

\"Sue<\/p>\n

Sue Shearer says the price hike would make pensioners reluctant to use air conditioners. (ABC News: Pete Garnish)<\/p>\n

“I fear older people especially won’t turn their aircon on,” she said.<\/p>\n

“If we have a wet season with the temperatures soaring through the roof, we might see deaths as well because they don’t want to turn their aircons on, because they can’t afford it.<\/p>\n

“Is that the society we want our seniors to live in?”<\/p>\n

The NT government’s concession scheme allows eligible people to claim up to $1,200 per year towards electricity costs, $800 in water concessions and $486 in sewerage concessions, but Ms Shearer said those subsidies hadn’t been increased since 2018.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Power, water and sewerage prices in the Northern Territory will rise by 5.3 per cent from today, higher…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":772653,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[64,63,79969,5249,75,19439,8867,1098,1881,366989,128,37652],"class_list":["post-772652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-bill-yan","tag-darwin","tag-environment","tag-increase","tag-northern-territory","tag-nt","tag-pensioners","tag-power-price","tag-science","tag-treasurer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=772652"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772652\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/772653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=772652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=772652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=772652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}