The Australian Energy Regulator has opened consultation for a review of payment difficulty protections in the National Energy Customer Framework (NECF).
This review aims to identify whether change is needed to ensure that consumers experiencing payment difficulty are proactively identified, engaged early and supported appropriately with assistance that is tailored to their individual circumstances.
On 14 May 2024, we released an Issues Paper for consultation. The paper seeks feedback on key issues that have been identified through early consultation, preliminary analysis and consumer research, including:
- the effectiveness of existing protections for consumers experiencing payment difficulty
- whether there are opportunities to strengthen protections for consumers experiencing payment difficulty
- the benefits and limitations of other frameworks and approaches
- the costs and benefits of potential changes to the framework.
In our Towards energy equity strategy, we committed to consider whether improvements can be made to the framework to ensure that consumers experiencing payment difficulty receive effective, tailored assistance.
We are also progressing other actions in the strategy through this review by considering the consumer energy debt threshold for disconnection and opportunities to improve engagement so that disconnection is truly a last resort.
We invite all interested stakeholders to provide feedback on the key issues identified in the issues paper by 28 June 2024.
Submissions can be made by emailing ConsumerPolicy
aer [dot] gov [dot] au (ConsumerPolicy[at]aer[dot]gov[dot]au). You can also provide verbal feedback by emailing us to schedule a consultation meeting.