On 6 September 2018 the Australian Energy Market Commission (AEMC) made a draft rule to help vulnerable customers who are having trouble paying their bills due to hardship. The rule aims to improve retailers’ hardship policies so customers can better understand their rights and get the help they need to pay their power bills. Submissions are due by 18 October 2018.

The draft rule requires the Australian Energy Regulator (AER) to develop binding customer hardship policy guidelines (Hardship Guidelines) in order to strengthen retailer hardship policies, and make them more transparent and consistent.

Under the NERL, retailers must have hardship policies in place for residential customers. The policy must be approved by the AER and must contain, at a minimum, a number of requirements. These include:

• processes to identify residential customers experiencing payment difficulties due to hardship
• processes for how the retailer will respond early to customers who might be experiencing payment difficulties due to hardship
• flexible payment options
• processes to identify government concession programs and financial counselling services
• an outline of a range of programs that the retailer may use to assist hardship customers
• processes to review the appropriateness of a hardship customer’s market retail contract
• processes to assist customers with strategies to improve their energy efficiency.