Calls for a “Consumer Duty” in Australia’s energy market are gaining momentum. Many see this as a way to ensure providers act in customers’ best interests as the system becomes more complex.
But across this discussion, we risk overlooking the people whose experiences most clearly justify a Consumer Duty in the first place: the tens of thousands of Australians – overwhelmingly First Nations households in regional and remote areas – who must rely on prepayment electricity meters.
For communities, this is not an abstract policy problem. It is a reality. As Original Power’s new Right to Power report shows, energy insecurity and household disconnections are a daily reality, not an emerging risk.
Power going out is not a theoretical “future risk” – it is happening now, shaping how families live, how Elders stay safe, and how children grow up.
(Ed: Listen also to Renew Economy’s recent SwitchedOn podcast about this issue: SwitchedOn podcast: The scandal of weekly power cuts in First Nations communities).
Experts have suggested it may be premature to describe the energy market as facing a “disaster.” That may be true for many grid-connected post-pay customers, where disconnections are considered a last resort by retailers.
But for prepayment customers, losing power happens automatically the moment credit runs out. There is no call from the retailer, no payment plan, no hardship arrangement – just the lights, fridge and cooling switching off, often in extreme heat.
For prepayment families who already face higher costs of living in remote areas, harsher climates, limited services and reduced retail competition, the energy “safety net” simply isn’t there.
This is not a fringe problem – there are 15,000 First Nations’ households for which prepayment is the default or mandated pay arrangement.
These families and households are energy consumers who pay for energy services like all other Australians.
But they cannot choose their retailer, access competitive offers, or benefit from rooftop solar or other lower-cost energy opportunities available to most Australians.
Prepayment has been a convenient tool for governments and retailers to shift risk and responsibility for energy debt onto low-income households.
But when a system overwhelmingly affects First Nations people, and when it results in ongoing disconnection from an essential service, it reflects not individual behaviour but a deep policy failure.
The daily or weekly need to ration between food, energy and other basics is a form of energy poverty that Australians should not accept.
This is what happens when consumer protection frameworks are designed around one type of customer, while others are excluded from the regulatory perimeter by design.
As the Right to Power report shows, many prepayment customers are not covered by the National Energy Customer Framework (NECF) – which regulates the connection, supply and sale of energy to grid-connected customers – and local prepayment codes often provide weaker protections, little transparency, and limited accountability.
That’s why the government’s Better Energy Customer Experiences (BECE) process matters so much. For the first time, national energy reform is explicitly not limited to NECF or the National Electricity Market.
The BECE Terms of Reference cover all jurisdictions, and specifically include prepayment customers, off-grid communities, and embedded networks.
The BECE principles require equivalent protections “regardless of location” — a direct acknowledgement of the gaps that numerous researchers have highlighted for years.
If a Consumer Duty is to emerge from BECE, it must start with customers who face the greatest risk and have the least agency.
A duty designed only around mainstream billing and switching behaviour would repeat the same mistake: designing protections for the majority and leaving prepayment households out of view.
Australia’s First Nations Clean Energy Strategy endorsed by all Energy Ministers in December 2024 reinforces this point. It commits governments to extend protections to consumers outside regulated markets and ensure they genuinely meet First Nations needs.
BECE is a key vehicle for delivering that commitment.
Prepayment customers are not anomalies, but energy consumers who deserve the same protections and reliability all energy consumers deserve; because access to energy is a precursor to participation in community and economic life.
A Consumer Duty worth its name must:
– identify and minimise foreseeable harm in prepayment systems;
– ensure consumer protections apply regardless of jurisdiction or market;
– recognise that “choice” doesn’t exist where customers cannot switch plans or retailers (or even contact a retailer to access support) and;
– require better data and reporting on disconnections and energy insecurity.
BECE gives Australia a rare opportunity to fix long-standing inequities in the energy system.
If we build a Consumer Duty for imagined customers rather than real ones, we will miss the point entirely. Prepayment households must be at the centre of reform, not the margin.
Note: Listen also to Renew Economy’s recent SwitchedOn podcast about this issue: SwitchedOn podcast: The scandal of weekly power cuts in First Nations communities
Jonathan Kneebone is director of policy and engagement at First Nations Clean Energy Network
