April 2025 - Assisting hardship customers

The Australian Energy Market Commission release their Draft Determination on the proposed changes to assist customer in hardship. EWOQ, EWOSA and EWON collectively reviewed the Draft Determination and generally supported the three key proposed changes to assist customers in hardship which included:

  1. A new principle that requires retailers to ensure that customers on their affordability program pay no more than the deemed better offer, through either providing a financial benefit to the customer when they are not on the deemed better offer or obtaining explicit informed consent from the customer to be moved onto the deemed better offer.
  2. A requirement that retailers explicitly state in their affordability policy that they will check and offer the deemed better offer, both upfront upon a customer entering an affordability program and at least once every 100 days or in line with an agreed billing cycle with the customer.
  3. The addition of new affordability program indicators to be reported to the AER by retailers.
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