The Justice and Equity Centre led a joint consumer and community response to the AEMC’s Draft Determination for the Improving the ability to switch to a better offer rule change. The submission was co-signed by the ACT Council of Social Service, Combined Pensioners and Superannuants Association, the Ethnic Communities Council of NSW, Financial Counsellors’ Association of NSW, People with Disability Australia and the St Vincent de Paul Society NSW. Our organisations provided a detailed response to the issues paper for this rule change earlier in 2025.
Our organisations support the intent of the AEMC’s preferred rule change to require retailers to display the better offer message on bill cover communications in addition to on the actual bill. We agree that this rule change will likely result in more awareness of better offers for some consumers.
We are however disappointed to note that our concerns, detailed in our Joint Submission to the Issues Paper for this rule change proposal, have largely been realised. The intent and ambition for reform championed by consumer and community organisations during the AER’s Gamechanger process have been significantly diluted through subsequent processes. The resulting Draft Rule Change is largely another exercise in “awareness-raising”, rather than one addressing the root causes of the problem.
