Just had the gas bill land in the mail box, 'our first here' - and we now need to pay alinta the sum of $174.
We only have a gas four burner hob and the hot water is gas fired, everything else is electrically powered.
Ain't gas here pricey compared to electricity

Usually gas is cheaper than electricity. Is your hot water system a storage or instantaneous one?

Does it include a security deposit? My gas company have a $50 deposit on my account - not entirely sure why but it's there and was included in the first bill. Also, is that a 'monthly' bill or quarterly? If it's monthly you must be having very long showers!

how long for?

My two eldest daughters do insist on 30 minute showers every day, it's the long hair that as to be washed
Also, the system is a continuous hot flow one.
O/H is blowing bubbles over there time in the shower anyway, wait til he sees the bill

Our first bill (45 days) was $80 (excluding application fee). The second was $88 for 90 days. I can't see that we did anything different after the first bill, and the weather got a lot colder so I'd have expected water heating costs to increase. I did wonder whether they estimate (although it refers to a meter).

Lots of variation in electricity bills too, so be warned!

Edited to add: And that's with Mini having a bath most nights. You'll have to get your girls to shower en masse!

Instantaneous "should" be most efficient.
Two of us, gas hob, instant has HW, two gas heaters, bill is $60 pcm.
as Helen gas is MUCH cheaper than electric.
2 x 30 min showers s simply not sustainable water wise let alone the gas bill.

That's an enormous use of water as well as gas, and probably electricity as well if there's a fan and/or heating on. What is your water bill going to be like? I can't imagine how taking a shower could take that long (unless you've got company). On that ABC inventors show last year, someone invented a lever that could be fitted to the shower to turn off the water when you didn't need it, eg when shampooing or putting conditioner on. Wonder if it's on the market yet?

Although they're more expensive and a nuisance, it's a shame that you haven't got a storage tank - that might cut down their water usage - or cause WWIII in your household.

I agree, I am actually quite cross with the OP about that water use.

My girls shower every day too but they get 5 minutes max and they both have long hair. If they don't come out in 5 minutes I start turning other taps on to make the water cold

Not necessarily... Heat Pumps (Inverter) for reverse cycle Air cons and Heating Hotwater and Induction Cooktops have evened out the price. With the Instantaneous depends on how far your hot water system is from your kitchen. Plenty of 5 star tank systems out there now and only the newest instantaneous or condensing units have higher star ratings and they are very expensive to buy.. Only reason I know this is because I've been looking at depth at appliances for our reno.

We shut the hot water supply off if the kids have been in for more than 7 minutes. Water is a huge issue in WA so we think we're being pretty generous with allowing 7 minutes each!

Bugger that... it's down to the infrastructure in my book. I dont care how much it costs as long as there is plenty of it. Force the Authorities to build the infrastructure by running the dams low.

Pissed of with this running on empty attitude. I wont waste water in the Garden, I use Grey water.... But I'm stuffed if people will tell me how long to take in the shower or how many baths I can take a week.

How about we just issue ration cards for water and electricity instead.

Sadly most people cannot afford to take such wealthy approach.
Water is an essential for all but now to needlessly wasted.

Water per Kilo Litre is no where near as expensive as most people think. The majority of any water bill is local infrastructure charges.... Yes I do want more infrastructure I will admit...and boy does this Country need it. On average most household pay 1.50 to 1.80 per 1000 litres of water. Therefore the average household pays about 30 to 40 pct for their water usage and 60 - 70 pct for the infrastructure charges. Therefore a 30 minute shower at an average of about 15 litres per minute max would be using approx 1 dollar in water charges. . If it's a later model shower head... then it could be down to 10 liters per minute. I'd say the average time in in the shower in our household would be 10 to 15 mins so approx 100 liters for us as we have the latest shower heads.

We are causing ourselves more harm than good by not having the new infrastructure built that is so desperately needed in this country.

Debs hubby here:

I just read the meter and the reading is correct but the letter we have recieved shows a massive difference between what we started off at and what they are saying we did?
When we moved in the first thing i did was take a gas and electric reading the gas meter read 8195 in the main units - the bill we have just recieved reads a total of 1174 units used since last reading, thats a usage increase giving a total units of 9369?
The thing is the meter reading bill shows a CURRENT reading of 8254 Thats a actual difference of 59 units, NOT the 1174 They are saying we have used?
APPLICATION FEE was $38.00
The bill is for a period of 96 days.