The Australian Energy Market Commission (AEMC) has published its draft determination and draft rules to amend the national gas rules (NGR) and national energy retail rules (NERR) to create a new regulatory framework for retail customer initiated gas abolishment.  

The draft rules would require retail customers who decide to abolish their gas connection to pay cost-reflective abolishment charges. The draft rules would also introduce definitions and new information provision requirements in the NGR and NERR to support more informed decision making by retail customers.  

We have made more preferable draft rules to establish a framework for retail customer initiated abolishment services

Our more preferable draft rule would provide a framework for customer initiated gas abolishment in the NGR, largely modelled on the retail customer connections framework in Part 12A of the NGR. This framework would require customers abolishing their gas connection to pay the prudent and efficient cost reflective charge of their abolishment. The framework would include:

• Outcomes-based definitions of disconnection and abolishment services
• A requirement for distributors to develop model standing offers for a basic abolishment service.
• An option for distributors to develop model standing offers for other standardised services and to provide negotiated abolishment services.
• A charging criteria that would require distributors to determine, and retail customers to pay, prudent and efficient cost-reflective abolishment charges.
• Contestability of abolishment services to be facilitated, where permitted by the relevant jurisdiction.  
• A requirement for distributors to provide information on disconnection and abolishment services on their websites.

The framework would apply to scheme and any nominated non-scheme gas distribution networks in all jurisdictions except Western Australia.

The draft rules would also introduce new information provision requirements in the NGR and NERR to support more informed decision making by retail customers who are considering ceasing to use gas.  

The draft rules promote the national gas objective and national energy retail objective and provide for improved outcomes for gas customers by:

• Providing a new framework to facilitate access to the abolishment services provided by distributors on fair and reasonable terms and conditions
• Introducing definitions and new information provision requirements to support more informed and efficient decision-making by retail customers that are considering ceasing to use gas  
• Implementing a beneficiary-causer pays approach to abolishment charges to mitigate significant cost impacts for remaining gas customers

The new framework would be implemented in phases from 2027, with distributors’ key obligations to commence at the start of each network’s subsequent access arrangement. Information provisions would take effect earlier, in August 2026.  

We are interested in your views on the issues raised in the draft determination. Stakeholder submissions are due by 11 December 2025.

Background

On 9 May 2025, the AEMC received a rule change request from the Justice and Equity Centre (JEC) to amend the NGR and NERR to create a new regulatory framework for gas disconnections and abolishment.  

On 12 June 2025, the AEMC initiated joint consultation on JEC’s rule change request and Energy Consumers Australia’s (ECA) rule change request on gas connections. We received 27 submissions, which can be found here.  

Following initial consultation, the AEMC extended the time to make a draft determination on the JEC rule change request.  

The Commission published a draft determination for the ECA rule change on 18 September 2025 to make a more preferable rule to require gas network distributors to charge retail customers cost-reflective charges for new gas connections through an upfront connection fee.