Submission to the Department of Treasury and Finance (Victoria) on the Review of the Essential Services Commission Act

Our submission (PDF, 673.17KB) to the Review of the Essential Services Commission Act highlights that while Victoria's Essential Services Commission (ESC) has been increasingly effective in promoting the interests of consumers, reforms are needed to the underlying regulatory framework to enable it to deliver better consumer outcomes.

We recommend:

• Introducing an overarching energy consumer duty that requires providers to deliver good consumer outcomes by default
• Extending the ESC’s regulatory oversight to consumer energy resources
• Ensuring legislative objectives consistently prioritise consumer interests, fairness and equity
• Maintaining the ESC’s core regulatory and enforcement powers
• Embedding requirements for consumer protection expertise within the Commission’s governance arrangements