John Smith

John has 20+ years of experience providing advice on regulatory, economic and policy matters across the private and public sectors.

He works with clients across government, water, Crown lands, energy, ports and postal sectors. His advice covers issues including pricing, fees and cost-recovery, cost allocation, customer rebates and concessions and government policy/program/scheme design and evaluation.

Before joining Frontier Economics, John was a Director of Pricing in the Energy team at the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal of NSW (IPART), and Director of Economics at the former NSW Department of Planning and Environment, establishing an Economics team in the Lands & Water branch.

His expertise includes:

Economic regulation

John supports regulated businesses to prepare pricing proposals to economic regulators, and to regulators in evaluating these proposals. This includes regulatory strategy, operating and capital expenditure forecasts, cost efficiency strategies, incentive scheme design and drafting of pricing submission documents.

Examples include:

• Supporting regulated businesses to design and prepare price submissions to regulators (e.g. Australia Post, Hunter Water, Sydney Desalination Plant, Gladstone Area Water Board, Gas Malaysia, Vector Gas New Zealand.
• Undertaking an expenditure review for IPART on Central Coast Council’s proposed water, wastewater and stormwater operating and capital expenditure.
• Supporting regulated businesses to prepare cost-efficiency targets and strategies, including Hunter Water, Central Coast Council and Essential Water.

Business cases and Regulatory Impact Statements

John assists government departments to prepare compelling business cases and regulatory impact statements that meet jurisdictional guidelines and that are underpinned by robust cost-benefit analysis.

Examples include:

• Preparing a Preliminary Business Case investigating options for more efficient and effective provision of water and wastewater services in western NSW for the NSW Department of Climate Change, the Environment, Energy and Water.
• Supporting a Regulatory Impact Statement through a cost-benefit analysis to remake the Border Fence Maintenance Regulation, which provides for the maintenance of a wild dog border fence along parts of the South Australian and Queensland borders of NSW.
• Preparing a Regulatory Impact Statement for the NSW Department of Planning and Environment for the Water Industry Competition Regulation.

Policy advice

John helps government departments to put an economics lens across complex policy issues using widely accepted economic and policy principles.

Examples include:

• Advising NSW Crown Lands in relation to rental arrangements for leases and licenses, including perpetual leases as well as the financial concession policy applying to these tenures
• Advising the NSW Department of Climate Change, the Environment, Energy and Water on potential policy options for support schemes for vulnerable customers/customers in hardship and the ongoing funding of such schemes.
• Advising the Essential Services Commission in relation to an update to the Victorian Energy Upgrades program, including fee modelling based on different program targets.

We work as one team across the world

In Asia-Pacific, we do this from offices in Australia and Singapore. We work as a single team with expertise and people brought together as required by the problem we are solving for our clients.  Reach out to any of our economists and consultants to find out how we can help you.