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Speaker 1: The electricity authority, updating the rules for your power bill,

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Speaker 1: clearer bills, playing language, a requirement that you're on the

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Speaker 1: best plan for your usage. Neil Mellon is Utilities Disputes

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Speaker 1: Commissioner and CEO of ME this morning. Now, good morning,

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Speaker 1: Good morning Ryan. Will these make any difference to what

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Speaker 1: we're actually paying on the bills?

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Speaker 2: Oh? Look, I think they will long term because what

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Speaker 2: they will do is reduce some of the inefficiencies in

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Speaker 2: the system. I think, particularly for consumers who get caught

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Speaker 2: up in errors with their metering or their billing and

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Speaker 2: face a large back or that will make a real

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Speaker 2: difference for those consumers.

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Speaker 1: Is it going to be easier for us to understand?

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Speaker 1: I mean, they're pretty easy to understand, now, aren't they.

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Speaker 2: Oh look, I think there's difficulties between different retailers understanding plans.

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Speaker 2: We get a lot of complaints about you not understanding usage,

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Speaker 2: not understanding how much people are paying for their bills.

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Speaker 2: I think having some standard things will really help consumers.

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Speaker 2: It will also promote switching, It will reduce the complaints

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Speaker 2: that come through to us when we deal with them,

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Speaker 2: and it will make it easier for us to sort

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Speaker 2: of resolve those complaints with consumers as well, So I

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Speaker 2: think they're positive changes.

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Speaker 1: Neil, there's going to be a cap on how far

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Speaker 1: back the energy companies can hit you with a backdated charge.

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Speaker 1: Do you deal with a lot of disputes about that?

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Speaker 1: How far back are we talking?

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Speaker 2: Look, we're talking about it being reduced to six months,

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Speaker 2: which is a really big shift. We at Utilities Suites

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Speaker 2: deal with around about fourteen thousand complaints a year, and

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Speaker 2: last year we dealt with abound one hundred two hundred

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Speaker 2: complaints dealing with really specific backbill issues and it didn't

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Speaker 2: sound like a lot, but the average bill for a

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Speaker 2: consumer was around twenty three hundred. That's for a household.

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Speaker 2: For a business it was eighteen thousand, and you're dealing with,

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Speaker 2: in some cases, people getting hit with that bill in

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Speaker 2: one go and it being deducted from their account. So

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Speaker 2: it's a significant change that we've been pushing for for

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Speaker 2: a couple of years. And to be fair, some retailers

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Speaker 2: have been really positive and worked with utility spits to

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Speaker 2: reduce the amount voluntarily that they would go back, but

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Speaker 2: we were seeing differences between retailers. We were seeing consumers

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Speaker 2: getting really impacted by this. We've been pushing for that

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Speaker 2: change for the last couple of years and it's positive

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Speaker 2: to see it being right.

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Speaker 1: Neil, appreciate your time. This moowying Neil mallon Utilities disputes

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Speaker 1: commissioner and CEO.

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Speaker 2: For more from Early Edition with Ryan Bridge.

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Speaker 1: Listen live to news talks. It'd be from five am weekdays,

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