Our vision
Our vision is "Great value for customers and community through excellence in rural water management".
In delivering our vision, our aspirations are to provide:
- customer value through outstanding service
- community value to help our regions thrive
- excellence in everything we do by empowering our people to deliver results.
Our foundations will enable us to be: financially sound, resilient and insight-driven, operate efficient systems, and be a great partner, an outstanding asset manager and a trusted resource steward.
Our people are at the heart of everything we do. It is our people who build these foundations and apply them to bring our aspirations to life.
Working with our community
At Southern Rural Water, we are committed to effective and inclusive community engagement. We know that involving our community in the work that we do, provides positive outcomes.
We engage with our community at a strategic, project and operational level, often leveraging our engagement with partners across our service area.
Engagement objectives
Where possible, we undertake engagement early and in an open and transparent manner, utilising the International Association for Public Participation’s (IAP2) Public Participation Spectrum. This is a global model for how community members, groups and stakeholders can be engaged, along with the level and type of engagement.
By engaging early, it can help to build confidence and buy-in. Good engagement generates trust and goodwill, and:
- improves transparency in decision-making processes
- promotes a shared understanding
- builds a stronger evidence base to inform decisions.
- meets regulatory requirements.
How we engage
We engage in many ways, including (but not limited to): consultative committees, customer reference groups, surveys, third party committees, and drop-in sessions.
We have tailored communication and engagement plans for our programs of work, and include information on how you can be involved in our programs of work on our website, via our project pages.
What do you mean by ‘community’?
Community encompasses anyone affected by our work, including our customers, and those who live, work or visit our service area. Community also encompasses stakeholders, community groups and Traditional Owners.
Our history
Southern Rural Water was formed when the Rural Water Corporation was dissolved. The Rural Water Corporation started life in 1907 as the State Rivers and Water Supply Commission of Victoria – with wide ranging responsibilities for water supply and distribution in rural and regional Victoria.
By the 1990s, however, many irrigators were not happy about some of the activities of the Rural Water Corporation. When irrigators protested over charges, the government established the McDonald Review to look at the future management of the Rural Water Corporation.
In 1992 the McDonald Review set in train the dissolution of the Rural Water Corporation by establishing regional advisory boards. In 1994, the Rural Water Corporation was separated into five independent rural water authorities.
For Southern Rural Water, the final step occurred on 1 July 1995 when the two authorities in southern Victoria (Southern and Gippsland) were combined to form our current organisation.