Extra Help team: responding to energy and water affordability

Affordability challenges

Sustained high energy prices and broader cost of living pressures have resulted in a significant increase in customers presenting to EWON with long term affordability issues and complex vulnerabilities.

Government and regulators have taken notice, and a number of reforms and initiatives have been proposed to tackle affordability challenges. The Australian Energy Regulator (AER) recently released its final report on its review of payment difficulty protections. The report found that current protections are not fit for purpose.¹ One major concern expressed by the AER is that disconnection is being relied on as an engagement tool rather than a tool of last resort. The report identified 13 opportunities to address problems and strengthen protections. The AER is now seeking support from the Energy and Climate Change Ministerial Council to amend the National Energy Retail Law to introduce:

• a single and consistent definition for customers experiencing payment difficulties 

• higher penalties for retailers failing to uphold the principle that disconnection due to an inability to pay energy bills should be as a last resort.

The Australian Energy Market Commission (AEMC) has also been consulting on four rule changes. The proposed changes aim to help households access cheaper energy deals; increase support for people experiencing affordability issues; and deliver greater protections for consumers. In its final determination on assisting vulnerable customers and improving confidence in energy plans, one of the four rule  changes, the AEMC made a number of changes including:

• restricting price increases in market retail contracts to once every 12 months 

• placing a direct obligation on retailers to ensure if a vulnerable customer is not on the lowest cost deemed better offer, the customer won’t be financially worse off than if they were on the deemed better offer.

In the water sector, the Independent Pricing and Revenue Tribunal (IPART) has recently reviewed pricing for Sydney Water and Hunter Water that will apply for the next five years. As part of those reviews IPART has recommended that the NSW Government improve the effectiveness of existing water rebates to provide greater support to customers most in need of financial support. We strongly support this recommendation and look forward to working with the government on its implementation.

EWON’s assistance to customers experiencing vulnerability

Many customers contact EWON with high energy and water bills. Some of these customers are also experiencing broader personal vulnerabilities such as family and domestic violence, incarceration, unemployment, homelessness, medical conditions, disability, or literacy barriers.

In response, EWON’s Dispute Resolution team has expanded to include a new, purpose-built Extra Help team. This team uses a "one touch" complaint handling model, assigning a single EWON case manager to guide each customer through their entire complaint journey. This approach builds deeper trust and stronger rapport and helps customers better understand their rights and responsibilities.

The new team makes “warm” referrals to and from other agencies, including the National Debt Helpline (through the Financial Rights Legal Centre) and Carers NSW. This two-way referral system offers intentional and targeted support, assists with identifying the root cause of the affordability issue, and provides the customer with easy access to energy bill resolution.

After a successful trial period during FY25, the Extra Help team has now been permanently integrated into our wider Dispute Resolution team. The case studies below highlight some of the Extra Help team’s successes.

Case study

 Incarcerated customer can't close account

A customer opened an electricity account in her name but only lived at the property for one month before she was incarcerated. She could not close the account from prison, so when new occupants moved in, they continued using her energy account. The customer received a debt collection notice for arrears of over $12,500. She contacted the electricity provider to request the bill be waived, but she was required to provide evidence for why she was not living at the property.

The customer contacted EWON with an advocate, a financial counsellor who specialised in helping incarcerated people. She said she would be released in a few months but could not return to the property because she was impacted by family violence. She had no income while she was incarcerated, was long-term unemployed with limited ability to pay such a large sum back to the retailer, as well as dealing with complex health conditions.

The customer wanted to know whether she was liable for the debt, and if so, whether there was any financial assistance available to help her.  She also wanted to know if the retailer should have disconnected the electricity earlier to stop the debt growing. At this point the dispute resolution officer advised the customer her complaint would be dealt with by our Extra Help Team.

The customer’s case manager in the Extra Help Team discussed with the retailer that the customer was not at the property for a large period of time, and advised of the significant vulnerabilities she was facing, highlighting that a debt would likely be lifelong. The retailer agreed to waive the total account balance and closed the account in the customer’s name on the date that she had vacated the property. 

Case study

 Customer spends four years trying to pay water bill

Four years prior to contacting EWON a customer received a high water bill due to a leak at the property she wasn’t aware of. She tried to pay it back with payments of $50 per fortnight, however when the debt was around $6,000, her water provider advised they wished to increase the payments to $120 a fortnight. She advised that she couldn’t afford that increase: she and her husband were on pensions, had high mortgage payments, and were also in arrears in their gas and electricity accounts. The customer then received a notice requesting full payment of the amount, and contacted EWON.

The customer advised EWON that she and her husband could really only afford $30 per fortnight. The complaint was triaged to the Extra Help Team due to the customer’s limited income and inability to pay the high debt.

EWON contacted the water provider and discussed the cause of the high water bill in the first place. The provider advised that it had never received any notification of a leak.

EWON advised the customer that if she could show that the leak was undetected and fixed by an appropriate plumber, she may be eligible for rebates. We also discussed a payment arrangement. The provider advised that the customer’s water usage was $35 per fortnight so this at a minimum needed to be paid to ensure the arrears didn’t increase. The provider also explained that the customer had already been provided with $500 of payment assistance against her account, and some interest had been waived.  However, the provider then offered to apply an additional $1,200 of payment assistance to the account, and to waive current interest charges of $87. The provider also advised that the customer could contact them within 10 business days with proof of a leak, and to establish a new debt payment arrangement, on the condition that at a minimum, the customer paid for her ongoing water consumption. The customer accepted the resolution offer from the provider.

^{1. AER Review of payment difficulty protections in the NECF - Findings report - May 2025}