Page 1250 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 11 May 2021
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The reason the Labor-Greens government has brought this bill to the Assembly is that it was recommended by the independent regulator, the ACT Independent Competition and Regulatory Commission. In its 2020-24 electricity price investigation report the commission surveyed more than 1,000 ACT electricity consumers and consulted with electricity retailers, consumer groups and the community in preparing its recommendations.
As part of its work, the commission has been encouraging retailers to tell their customers to visit the Australian government’s Energy Made Easy website to check if there is a better offer from another retailer. Until I began researching this bill, I had never heard of the Energy Made Easy website, and I suspect the vast majority of Canberrans do not know about it either.
One of the big challenges for legislators is not only introducing legislation and other measures to hopefully improve people’s circumstances but also ensuring that information is relayed to customers so that they know about it. Even if time-poor Canberrans and families are aware of the website, I wonder how many, when they hear ‘energy made easy’ have a healthy dose of cynicism and wonder, ‘Really?’
As consumers, we are advised to shop around, but so often it is time-consuming, confusing and complicated. We either do not bother or we start, find that it is too hard and we get frustrated and give up. The Australian Energy Market Commission is on the record saying that many Canberrans are missing out on cutting their power bills by not shopping around. Yes, we get it—if only it was not so difficult. That is where this bill should be effective, because energy retailers will be required to inform customers if they have a better offer on the books and consumers will know the benchmark price to help compare a like-for-like basis with competitors’ prices and go elsewhere if they see a better deal.
A September 2019 report revealed that while ActewAGL’s market share has been declining the partly publicly owned company still has 83 per cent of the market. That is huge. The vast majority of Canberrans are with ActewAGL on the standard flat tariff—in other words, we are paying more than we should be, and for many of us much more. That money should be in our pockets, not in those of the electricity retailers. There are better deals on offer and there are also a host of other retailers in the market, but the consumer is none the wiser. Thank goodness that is soon to change.
In a briefing to understand this bill, I was informed that customers could save up to $400 annually by switching retailer or moving to a better offer with the same retailer. Apparently, ACT consumers are far less active than elsewhere in Australia, and ActewAGL has benefitted from a loyalty tax. That is not surprising when you consider Canberrans have not had the transparent pricing that several states have had for a number of years now.
The St Vincent de Paul Society 2019 report on energy prices revealed that Canberrans are losing as much as $500 a year by failing to actively seek out a better deal of electricity and gas prices. Their warning to Canberrans was if you snooze, you lose—you are getting dudded if you are not active. Canberra Liberals do not want
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