The Justice and Equity Centre led a joint submission with the Ethnic Communities Council of NSW, Financial Counsellors’ Association of NSW, South Australia Council of Social Service, St Vincent de Paul Society NSW, Sydney Community Forum, Tenants’ Union of NSW and Uniting Vic Tas to the Australian Energy Regulator’s (AER) Review of the exemptions framework for embedded networks – Invitation to submit feedback on proposed new retail conditions in the ‘Retail Exempt Selling Guideline’ (version 7).
We support the AER’s proposals to require exempt sellers to include contact details of the relevant energy ombuds scheme on their residential customers’ energy bills and that exempt sellers be required to refund any credits applied to its customer’s account upon termination of the customer’s energy supply agreement. However, we do not support the AER’s proposal to exclude residential park operators with less than 30 permanent residents from being required to provide ombuds scheme contact details. People living in residential parks are some of the most vulnerable and disadvantaged in the community and their right to information about an ombuds scheme should not be diminished by anything as arbitrary as the number of residents in the park.
