The Commission has made a more preferable final retail rule (final rule) in response to four rule change requests submitted by the Hon. Chris Bowen MP, Minister for Climate Change and Energy, as Chair of the Energy and Climate Change Ministerial Council (ECMC) that seek to amend the National Energy Retail Rules (NERR) to make changes to energy market contracts.

The final determination will improve consumer protections for small customers (predominantly households) on retail energy contracts, increase the certainty and transparency of the prices they will pay, and improve confidence in the retail energy market. The final rule promotes the long-term interest of consumers and advances equity by informing, empowering and protecting consumers. 

The final rule will provide consumers greater confidence in their retail energy plans

The final rule seeks to resolve specific systemic issues relating to energy contracts across four key policy positions, these are:

1. addressing the loyalty penalty and lack of certainty around prices when benefits end
2. removing unreasonably high penalties for not paying bills on time
3. improving certainty for consumers by restricting the timing of price rises
4. improving certainty around bills by restricting fees and charges.

The final rule will:

• protect customers on contracts with benefits that change or expire from paying more than the standing offer once the benefits end
• improve protections for customers on contracts with unreasonable conditional discounts by requiring the retailer to remove the conditionality of the discount and apply the discount in full
• restrict retailers from increasing prices in market retail contracts more than once in 12 months
• prohibit fees (excluding network charges) for vulnerable consumers and limit fees to reasonable costs for all other consumers
• require retailers to inform their customers about these changes
• provide retailers with just over 12 months to comply with the rule. 

We have consolidated four rule change requests

We have consolidated four of the seven consumer package rule change requests into one rule change process — Improving consumer confidence in retail energy plans. The four rule changes consolidated were:

• Ensuring energy plan benefits last the length of the contract
• Removing unreasonable conditional discounts
• Preventing price increases for a fixed period under market retail contracts
• Removing fees and charges.

We have also released a final determination on Assisting hardship customers  

A final determination on Assisting hardship customers was also released on 19 June 2025. See the final determination here.

Background

On 12 August 2024, the AEMC received a rule change request from the Hon. Chris Bowen MP, Minister for Climate Change and Energy, as Chair of the Energy and Climate Change Ministerial Council (ECMC). The rule change seeks to amend the NERR.

The rule change forms part of a package of rule change requests submitted by Energy Ministers at their meeting on 19 July 2024. The package of consumer related rule change requests include: 

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