New national energy laws introducing stronger penalties for businesses failing to comply with the rules protecting Australian electricity and gas consumers have been welcomed by the Chair of the Australian Energy Regulator (AER), Clare Savage.
Ms Savage said the new and stronger penalties were introduced provide greater incentives for businesses to comply with laws designed to protect Australian electricity and gas consumers.
Under the new laws, Ms Savage said consumers could expect energy companies to play by the rules.
“If those rules are broken, the penalty must reflect the seriousness of the breaches in order to provide a deterrent,” Ms Savage said.
“The new penalty regime aligns energy laws more closely with other regimes for consumer protection and market regulation, and provides a significant scaling up of the penalties available to the courts and the AER,” she said.
“The increased maximum penalties will allow the courts to impose penalties that are proportionate to the harm done by a business that breaches the law.”
Ms Savage said the AER expected the new penalties, which came into effect this month (1 February), to incentivise energy businesses to make a greater effort to comply with laws that protected consumers.
She said that in the most serious cases the AER would be able to seek penalties of up to $10 million (or more for large companies) for alleged breaches of the energy laws.
Ms Savage said other key changes to AER’s powers included the ability to require witnesses to attend for oral examination during investigations; seek court orders requiring compliance with compulsory notices to provide information or documents; and seek orders that a person who breached certain provisions of the National Energy Laws to perform a service for the benefit of the community or publish an advertisement about the breach.
“These new powers will better equip us to do our job to protect consumers,” she said.
