On 19 June 2025, the Australian Energy Market Commission (AEMC) made a more preferable final retail rule (final rule) for the Assisting hardship customers rule change. This is in response to the rule change request submitted by the Hon. Chris Bowen MP, Minister for Climate Change and Energy, as Chair of the Energy and Climate Change Ministerial Council (ECMC) to increase support to people experiencing hardship.  

The Commission’s final rule recognises that hardship customers face many barriers to engaging with their retailer. The final rule seeks to:

• increase support and improve outcomes for hardship customers so that they are not financially worse off if they do not take up their retailer’s deemed better offer. This includes preventing hardship customers from incurring more debt or expenses than is necessary
• place a stronger onus on retailers to assist hardship customers with deemed better offers, but afford retailers flexibility in delivering these protections
• improve the reporting and transparency of the type of hardship offers customers are on and assist the AER with monitoring to ensure retailers comply with the final rule.

The final rule involves three key components: 

The Commission views that a principle or outcomes-based approach that provides for hardship customers to be financially no worse off than the deemed better offer is appropriate. This is because retailers are best placed to assess, manage and minimise costs associated with ensuring customers are on the deemed better offer. Under the outcomes-based approach, retailers can consider different lower-cost implementation approaches to meet their obligations.

The Commission also considers that the final rule contributes to our vision for A consumer-focused net zero energy system, specifically our consumer priority that seeks to inform, empower and protect consumers individually and as a collective. The final rule will reduce the onus and burden for hardship customers to take action to move to a retailer's deemed better offer, that is, the lowest-priced plan in terms of cost for a customer.

The Commission considered the issues raised in the rule change request, stakeholder submissions and feedback and opportunities to improve outcomes for hardship customers in line with our assessment criteria and the impacts to consumers and retailers. Our assessment also had regard to promoting equitable energy outcomes across households experiencing hardship in terms of accessing or benefiting from their retailer's deemed better offer. The Commission considers the final rule will promote equity, so that hardship customers have the support and protection they need to access and benefit from their retailer’s lowest-cost deemed better offer, particularly those who may face additional barriers to engaging with the market or their retailer. 

Background

The rule change request forms part of the broader ECMC consumer rule change package submitted on 12 and 28 August 2024. The package involves seven rule change requests that together seek to help households access cheaper energy deals, increase support for people experiencing hardship and deliver more protections for consumers.

The package of consumer-related rule changes includes: 

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

The rule change request on Assisting hardship customers considered that hardship customers face barriers to engaging with their retailer, such as lack of time, agency, literacy or language barriers. They considered that these barriers prevent hardship customers from getting the best retailer offer available to them and support for these customers could be improved beyond existing retailer obligations and processes.  

ECMC proposed to amend the National Energy Retail Rules (NERR) to require retailers to provide hardship customers with a credit on their bill if there is a deemed better offer for that customer, as referred in the Australian Energy Regulator’s (AER’s) Better Bills Guideline.

The rule change request leverages the Australian Energy Regulator’s Game changer report presented to the ECMC in December 2023.

The first four rule changes listed above are consolidated into a single rule change called Improving consumer confidence in retail energy plans. The final determination and final rule for this rule change were released on 19 June 2025.