Submission to Senate Select Committee on Energy Planning and Regulation in Australia

The JEC made a submission to the Australian Senate Select Committee on Planning and Regulation in Australia.

While noting that a regulatory framework populated by market bodies that operate independently of governments continues to be optimal, we argued that there is a timely opportunity to review, as a whole, the framework of policy and regulatory institutions governing the energy system and transition. We consider the best positioned actor to conduct this review is the Productivity Commission.

In our detailed feedback on the functioning of the regulatory and planning systems, we identified systematic consumer engagement, and the adequate resourcing of both the market bodies and consumer representatives and advocates as particular areas of opportunity. In the case of the market bodies, there is a need to ensure they are adequately resourced to keep up with, and even guide, the changes occurring in energy markets through this period of rapid transition. In the case of consumer representatives and advocates, there is a need to ensure a diversity of voices, reflecting the diversity of consumers in the Australian energy systems.