Submission on Energy Default Market Offer 25-26

The Justice and Equity Centre led a joint consumer response to the Australian Energy Regulator’s Draft Determination for the Default Market Offer 25-26 (DMO 7). The submission was co-signed by ACOSS, SACOSS & QCOSS.

Our organisations strongly support effective default price protections and their important role in shaping a retail market that works better for all consumers. We continue to encourage the AER to take every available opportunity to ensure DMO 7 more meaningfully supports and protects consumers especially during this time of high energy costs and ongoing cost-of-living pressure for households.

We provided a range of recommendations that the AER could adopt to improve outcomes for consumers. These included:

• Placing greater scrutiny on wholesale costs
• Excluding solar export and solar export hedging adjustments
• Remove costs to acquire and retain customers as an explicit additional cost allowance
• Undertake more granular assessment of ‘bad and doubtful debt’ costs
• Not include smart meter costs without greater transparency from retailers
• Make the removal of explicit competition allowance permanent
• Set a fair retail margin grounded in efficiency

We also continued to demonstrate the need for a holistic review of the DMO to improve and clarify it’s purpose, objectives and outcomes for consumers.