Icon Water's pricing proposal, published last week, is a far cry from the regulator's $500 increase to annual water supply charges mooted during the tariff structure review last year.

Prices, as ever, will continue to rise, with an almost doubling of the annual $104 water supply to $200 over the five years to 2023, or about $20 each year.

The water utility says the new proposal will keep most customers' bills from rising faster than the forecast inflation rate, as part of a "minor rebalancing" of water and sewerage prices.

But it seems it would penalise those using the least amount of water in their yards, while providing a big boost in cost savings for the territory's biggest industrial water users.

While the biggest users will see their bills fall about $269 next year, and rise just $76 in the following four years, those using less than 50kL a year, the smallest of residential water users, will see the $2.68 per kilolitre price rise to $2.84.

Residents using more than 50kL would see their bills fall by 43 cents per kilolitre to $4.95 from next year, and the "average household", using 200kL, face a $27 overall price rise next year, rising to $30 extra a year by 2023.

While the Independent Competition and Regulatory Commission ultimately held fire on tariff structure reform, it left the door open to structural reform as part of the pricing review, which Icon's proposals address.

However, the same problem the commission grappled with is one dogging the Icon proposal - that the "minor rebalancing" of tariff structures essentially creates the perverse incentive that the more water used, the lower the price rises.

Indeed, in attachments to the proposal before the commission, the change is laid bare in percentage terms.

Over the five years to 2023, the territory's smallest users, those under the 50kL threshold, face a cumulative increase of 15.3 per cent in their per kilolitre charges.

Households using the average amount, or about 200kL, face a 11.7 per cent rise, while the biggest commercial users face an immediate fall of between 0.6 per cent and 6.6 per cent, followed by between 0.4 and 3.3 per cent increase over the five-year period.

For residents, the assumption underlying Icon's proposal is that ACT workers' wages will rise by between 2.6 and 3.8 per cent each year from 2019 until 2023, despite the average wage rising just 1.7 per cent in the capital for each of the past two years.

Those price rises may be within an average 2.4 per cent forecast for inflation, but the assumptions underlying wages growth would seem a little too generous.

Or perhaps Canberra workers are overdue for that pay rise, and like Reserve Bank Governor Philip Lowe has advised, they should start asking for one.

At least they would have an official Icon Water pricing proposal at the ready as evidence to bring to the meeting with the boss.