01.Agreement reached
Last Friday, the Prime Minister and Australia's state and territory leaders took a crucial step to fix Australia's broken electricity sector.
Over 5,360 Australians joined with CHOICE to send a message to our leaders in the 72 hours leading up to their meeting. This pressure for real change helped ensure that politicians took notice and implemented a range of reforms including those we asked for in our Plan For Affordable Energy.
Decisions made last Friday include:
- A stronger system for regulating electricity networks, including better incentives for efficient investment, and giving the Australian Energy Regulator (AER) more powers and the resources to use them.
- A stronger role for all consumers in the regulatory system, including a consumer advocacy body and the establishment of the Consumer Challenge Panel within the AER.
- Ensuring that payment for electricity exported to the grid from embedded micro generation more accurately reflects the true value of that electricity
- Ensuring that electricity users who reduce their demand for electricity during peak and ‘super peak’ periods can benefit through the wholesale market;
- A robust system for protecting consumers, particularly vulnerable consumers.
Thank you for standing with CHOICE in our campaign to put power back in the hands of Australian energy consumers and reduce future pressure on energy bills.
There is a lot more work to be done, especially taking action on energy efficiency, but thanks to your support, we know that governments will listen to consumer power. You can help by becoming a campaign supporter.