Submission to AEMC Draft Determination Protecting Customers Affected by Family Violence

In partnership with ACT Council of Social Service, Financial Rights Legal Centre, Good Shepherd Australia New Zealand, South Australian Council of Social Service and Tasmanian Council of Social Service, PIAC made a submission to the Australian Energy Market Commission’s Draft rule, Protecting customers affected by family violence.

We are particularly pleased that the draft rule does not allow retailers to ask for evidence of family violence to access protections and support; includes former customers, small businesses and a has a broad definition of family violence; and contains recommendations to extend protections to people in embedded networks.

Whilst we are also pleased that there are some proposed requirements around staff skills requirements, in this submission we detail our concerns about how this would look in practice and provide recommendations for improvement.

We welcome the requirement for retailers to have a family violence policy and debt management procedures, but use this submission to highlight further amendments to these provisions that would benefit victim-survivors.

Finally, we recommend that a wide review of this rule change take place two years after implementation.