14 April 2020

Submission to the AER Consultation on the impacts of COVID-19 on the Default Market Offer

The Australian Energy Regulator has sought feedback on COVID-19 impacts on the Default Market Offer 2020-21. This is our submission.
Energy Consumers Australia

Australians are grappling with an extraordinary set of health, social and economic challenges and we see the role of the Default Market Offer (DMO) as the safety net price as being more important than ever.

Read our submission (PDF, 104.25KB)

We see it as critical that the updated DMO settings help lock in the downward trend in electricity prices and help ease the pressure on households and small businesses. We have not seen any evidence to suggest that the COVID-19 crisis should change the longer-term direction of travel for electricity bills, which is down. In the shorter term, for the 2020-21 period, our view is that potentially temporary impacts on supply chain costs should be dealt with through separate mechanisms, external to the DMO.

This submission builds on our earlier contribution to the process in March, which you can read here (PDF, 104.25KB).

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