The JEC coordinated a joint consumer and community advocate response to the AEMC’s Delivering more protections for energy consumers: Changes to retail energy contracts rule change proposal. The submission was co-signed by ACOSS, Sydney Community Forum and the Ethnic Communities Council of NSW.
This package of four rule changes seeks to resolve a range of unfair practices in retail contracting, billing and pricing that have consistently resulted in poor outcomes for many consumers. The four rule changes include:
- Ensuring plan terms last the length of the contract
- Removing unreasonable conditional discounts
- Preventing price increases for a fixed period
- Removing fees and charges
Our organisations broadly support this package of four rule changes to retail energy contracts. We strongly support comprehensive reform to the National Energy Retail Rules (NERR) intended to shape the retail market and materially improve outcomes for all consumers. These rule changes seek to address or improve issues that our organisations have been consistently raising with regulators, governments and other stakeholders over several years.
