The Commission has made a more preferable draft retail rule (draft rule) in response to four rule change requests submitted by the Hon. Chris Bowen MP, Minister for Climate Change and Energy, as Chair of the Energy and Climate Change Ministerial Council (ECMC) that seek to amend the National Energy Retail Rules (NERR) to make changes to energy market contracts.

The draft determination seeks to improve consumer protections for small customers (predominantly households) on retail energy contracts, increase the certainty and transparency of the prices they will pay and improve confidence in the retail energy market.

The draft rule seeks to provide consumers greater confidence in their retail energy plans

The draft rule seeks to resolve specific systemic issues relating to energy contracts across four key policy positions, these are:

1. addressing the loyalty penalty and lack of certainty around prices when benefits end
2. remove unreasonably high penalties for not paying bills on time
3. improving certainty for consumers by restricting the timing of price rises
4. improving certainty around bills by restricting fees and charges

The draft rule would:

• protect customers on contracts with benefits that change or expire from paying more than the standing offer once the benefits end
• improve protections for customers on contracts with unreasonable conditional discounts by requiring the retailer to remove the conditionality of the discount and apply the discount in full
• restrict retailers from increasing prices in market retail contracts more than once in 12 months
• prohibit fees and charges for vulnerable consumers and limit fees and charges to reasonable costs for all other consumers
• require retailers to inform their customers about these changes
• provide retailers with just over 12 months to comply with the rule.

Submissions to the draft determination are due on 8 May 2025

Stakeholder feedback will be important in shaping our position for the final determination, and we encourage you to make a submission. 

Written submissions are due by 8 May 2025.  

Please use the project code RRC0058 when lodging a submission.

We have consolidated four rule change requests

We have consolidated four of the seven consumer package rule change requests into one rule change process - Improving consumer confidence in retail energy plans. The four rule changes consolidated were:

• Ensuring energy plan benefits last the length of the contract
• Removing unreasonable conditional discounts
• Preventing price increases for a fixed period under market retail contracts
• Removing fees and charges.

We have also released a draft determination on assisting hardship customers

A draft determination on Assisting hardship customers was also released on 27 March 2025, with submissions closing on 8 May 2025. See the draft determination here.

Background

On 12 August 2024, the AEMC received a rule change request from the Hon. Chris Bowen MP, Minister for Climate Change and Energy, as Chair of the Energy and Climate Change Ministerial Council (ECMC). The rule change seeks to amend the NERR.

The rule change forms part of a package of proposed rule change requests to be submitted by Energy Ministers at their meeting on 19 July 2024. The package of consumer related rule change requests include: 

• Ensuring energy plan benefits last the length of the contract 
• Preventing price increases for a fixed period under market retail contracts 
• Improving the ability to switch to a better offer 
• Assisting hardship customers
• Removing fees and charges 
• Improving the application of concessions to bills
• Removing unreasonable conditional discounts