Nearly 1.5m people want help paying their power bills
Australia’s big energy retailers are warning of a dramatic increase in the number of households struggling to pay their electricity bills, with one company revealing more people are now accessing hardship programs than at the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
A select Senate committee on the cost of living held in Perth on Tuesday heard the number of people accessing hardship relief programs had increased by tens of thousands amid surging interest rates and rising energy costs.
More people are seeking financial help to pay rising power bills, retailers say. Joe Armao
Retail electricity tariffs for households in several states rose by more than 20 per cent on average on July 1, with some customers reporting their bills almost doubled.
The committee also heard from charity services including Foodbank WA, whose chief executive described the organisation as the “canary in the coal mine” of the cost-of-living crisis, and said its customer base had grown by 45 per cent in one year.
Energy Australia customer executive Mark Brownfield said the number of people accessing the company’s hardship program began climbing after the RBA started raising interest rates in mid-2022, and had now almost doubled.
“It’s very significant,” he told the inquiry.
The company is dealing with three times the number of inquiries regarding energy bill relief than during the pandemic, he said, with roughly 1000 people calling their customer service lines every day.
Mark Brownfield, chief customer officer at Energy Australia.
About 45,000 EnergyAustralia customers are now accessing its hardship program, representing around $30 million. AGL Energy said it had 21,000 customers on a similar program. Origin Energy told the inquiry it had recorded a 22 per
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