The Retail Guidelines play a key role in shaping how households and small businesses experience the retail energy market, including whether information is clear, changes are understood, and help is accessible when it’s needed.
Our submission supports improvements across the guidelines, while recognising that many persistent consumer problems stem from deeper structural features of the retail market, including an over-reliance on consumers to navigate complexity to achieve fair outcomes.
Our submission focuses on how this review can strengthen the contribution of the guidelines to better consumer outcomes, including by:
• aligning guidance more clearly around consumer outcomes
• reducing avoidable sources of confusion, such as same-name plans and unclear benefit changes
• ensuring guidance reflects how consumers actually engage with energy, including digital channels and emerging products.
We also see this review as an opportunity to support a shift toward more outcomes-focused regulation, alongside strong protections for consumers, consistent with the development of a consumer duty.
