Following news earlier this year the Hunter's ombudsman energy complaints have risen by 14%, State Labor is promising to re-regulate electricity prices.
Shadow Energy Minister Adam Searle visited Hamilton today, meeting with members of Newcastle St Vincent De Paul to discuss the plans - with a quarter of all calls to the charity now from those struggling to pay their power bills or buy groceries, combined.
Vinnies' Pam Clark said that from July until October, the local organisation handed out $96,000 worth of vouchers to people who cannot afford to pay their electricity bills.
Pam said families and small business often try to put the bills aside and forget about them, which fellow Vinnies member Kevin said results in them racking-up major debt.
"If they default on their bill for too long, the situation is placed in the hands of a debt collector, which makes it very difficult with the debt collectors hounding them," Kevin said.
"Once it goes to the debt collector, our vouchers are no good then," Pam explained.
Newcastle MP Tim Crakanthorp is blaming the region's energy woes on sector privatisation.
"For all the Government's claims that the price of power would come down after privatisation, it is very clearly untrue," he said, "[Former NSW Premier] Mike Baird made a pledge that would not happen, he signed on the dotted line and we've got 60% increases in power prices."
Adam Searle highlighted confusion for residents trying to choose an energy plan as a factor leading to price-gauging.
The Berejiklian Government has attempted to address the issue through its Energy Switch service, which uses a customer's latest e-bill to scan the entire rental electricity market and identify the three best deals on the market.
Consumers need to go to their local Service NSW outlet to access the comparison tool, and Mr Searle says it's not accessible for everyone and merely addresses "the symptoms not the cause."
Labor's pledging to introduce an independently set default offer for those who struggle to compare energy prices. It would require companies to make their offers in plain English and be easy to compare with one another.
"If you go to the Supermarket, it doesn't matter what size butter you buy, there's a cents per gram measure," Adam Searle said, "the electricity companies know what you use when you use it, they should be able to run your pattern and quantum of usage through all of their offers and tell you which is the best."
Labor is also welcoming a recommendation from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission to introduce mandatory price caps set by the independent regulator.
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| Tim Crakanthorp speaks with Pam and Kevin from St Vincent De Paul. |
