People need effective support from retailers when they’re struggling to pay their energy bills, and inadequate consumer protections mean many people don’t get it. Retailers need to do more and be more consistent in doing their part to ensure people get the help they need before falling into debt.
That’s why we support the Australian Energy Market Commission’s (AEMC) draft rule change proposal as a positive step, but highlight where it is well short of what is required in our joint response to the Strengthening Standards for Payment Difficulty Assistance draft determination. Stronger measures are needed to deliver on the intent of the AER’s rule change proposal and help ensure better outcomes for all people experiencing payment difficulty. This includes:
- Removing any unreasonable requirements to provide evidence of hardship or payment difficulty before offering or providing assistance, this includes reasonable limits on asking unnecessary and personal questions about a consumer’s situation;
- making capacity to pay the primary consideration when setting up payment plans, and introducing mandatory repayment safeguards, consumer nominated repayment amounts, explicit informed consent and light-touch check-ins from retailers, and;
- additional protections removing the ‘2 strikes rule’ to help avoid disconnections due to non-payment.
What’s next?
Further reforms are currently being developed as part of DCCEEW’s Better Energy Customer Experiences (BECE) process, including the consideration of further reform of protections and the introduction of a broad duty to consumers. We will continue to engage with this work, alongside other processes related to the reform the National Energy Consumer Framework (NECF).
