The Justice and Equity Centre coordinated a joint consumer and community organisation response to the AER’s Review of Payment Protections in the NECF. The submission was co-signed by ten organisations. The Review sought feedback on how to improve and strengthen protections for consumers in the provision of energy as an essential service.
The NECF is currently failing to prevent energy related payment difficulty and provides inadequate protections and assistance to consumers to help them overcome it when it occurs. Our submission builds on the long-term work of the consumer and community sector in revealing the extent of payment difficulties and harms experienced by energy consumers and in advocating for solutions to these issues. The submission concludes that the Victorian Payment Difficulty Framework (PDF) offers a superior platform to address these issues, with the adoption of a range of augmentations that are explored in detail in this submission.
