From 1 March 2010, new regulations mean that electricity and gas suppliers in NSW must:

• develop and implement a customer hardship charter to assist residential customers experiencing financial difficulty to better manage their energy bills on an ongoing basis; 
• publish the customer hardship charter on the supplier's website; and 
• not disconnect a residential customer for a failure to make payment, unless in the previous 12 months the supplier has twice offered the customer assistance under a payment plan operated by the supplier if the customer is experiencing financial difficulty.

The hardship charters are a key part of the NSW Government's Customer Assistance Policy. NCOSS welcomes these stronger protections for households and looks forward to the remaining parts of the Customer Assistance Policy to be implemented including extra funding for financial counsellors and targeted financial assistance for low income households to become more energy efficient.

More information: 

• Dev Mukherjee, NCOSS Senior Policy Officer
  ph: 9211 2599, ext 116
  email: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it