Financial Counselling Victoria has provided a submission to the Essential Services Commission as part of Stage 2 of the Energy Retail Code of Practice review. Grounded in the direct experiences of Victorian financial counsellors, it highlights how early, flexible, and compassionate retailer responses improve outcomes, and how rigid, fragmented systems can escalate harm.

The submission broadly supports the Commission’s proposed reforms and identifies priority areas where stronger protections are most needed. These include an overarching consumer duty requiring retailers to act fairly and in consumers’ interests, proactive hardship identification obligations, and strengthened family violence protections that reduce retraumatisation and address safety risks in contact, account security, and debt pathways.

It also calls for extending minimum protections to embedded network customers, ensuring any First Nations data collection is culturally safe and linked to real consumer benefits, clarifying that customers with closed accounts remain entitled to payment difficulty assistance, and improving outage communications while maintaining strict privacy safeguards. The submission acknowledges and is co-signed by Westjustice, the Economic Abuse Reference Group (EARG), and Community Information & Support Victoria (CISVic).

Financial Counselling Victoria’s submission to the Parliamentary Inquiry into the 2026 summer fires is informed by substantial frontline feedback and expertise from financial counsellors working directly with affected communities across Victoria. The submission draws on the lived experience of financial counsellors supporting individuals, families, small businesses and primary producers through Community Recovery Hubs, rural outreach and disaster recovery services.

Financial counsellors have played a critical role in disaster response, assisting affected community members with insurance claims, grant applications, debt negotiations, access to temporary accommodation and navigation of complex and fragmented recovery systems. This submission reflects what financial counsellors are consistently seeing and hearing: prolonged power, water and telecommunications failures, digital exclusion, inconsistent and opaque eligibility decisions, barriers for underinsured households, and recovery pathways that place administrative processes ahead of timely, human‑centred support.

Based on this extensive frontline insight, FCVic’s submission calls for stronger infrastructure resilience, transparent decision‑making, genuinely accessible ‘no wrong door’ service delivery, and the embedding of trauma‑informed practice in recovery system design. It emphasises that effective recovery depends not only on funding, but on systems that reflect the real financial and emotional realities faced by disaster‑affected communities.

This joint consumer submission to the Independent Review of the Customer Owned Banking Code of Practice brings together national consumer policy, legal and frontline financial counselling expertise to assess whether the Code delivers meaningful protections in practice. Strongly informed by extensive casework and feedback from financial counsellors supporting people experiencing financial hardship, vulnerability, domestic and family violence, disaster impacts, incarceration and small business financial stress, the submission highlights where the current Code falls short and how these gaps result in real consumer harm. It calls for clearer, enforceable obligations that go beyond aspirational promises, align with contemporary best‑practice standards, and ensure customer‑owned banks provide accessible, fair and accountable services to people who rely on them most.

This is a joint consumer submission developed collaboratively by the following organisations, with coordination led by Mortgage Stress Victoria and informed by national and jurisdictional financial counselling practice:

• Consumer Action Law Centre
• Consumer Credit Legal Service Western Australia
• Consumer Policy Research Centre
• Consumers Federation of Australia
• Each
• Financial Counselling Australia
• Financial Counselling Victoria
• Indigenous Consumer Assistance Network (ICAN)
• Mob Strong Debt Help
• Mortgage Stress Victoria
• Thriving Communities Australia
• Vacro

Financial Counselling Victoria’s submission to the Regulatory Impact Statement for the proposed Portable Rental Bond Scheme supports the scheme’s objective of reducing upfront financial barriers for renters while highlighting key risks for people experiencing financial hardship. The submission emphasises the need for meaningful consultation on hardship guidelines, including the involvement of financial counsellors and consumer advocates, and calls for those guidelines to align with established best practice hardship frameworks. It also raises concerns about fees and debt collection practices, strongly recommending that any debts arising under the scheme be managed internally by government and not referred to external debt collectors. FCVic notes that the overall effectiveness of the scheme will depend on the strength, fairness and accessibility of its hardship settings.

Financial Counselling Victoria’s submission to the Essential Services Commission’s draft decision on better protections for life support customers supports reforms that reduce barriers, improve communication and recognise the realities faced by people experiencing vulnerability. The submission strongly endorses the removal of periodic medical re‑confirmation requirements and the proposed improvements to communication, including preferred contact methods, secondary contacts and regular check‑ins. It also highlights ongoing concerns about fragmented systems and the absence of a centralised life support register, noting that without broader structural reform, existing challenges around data sharing, retailer switching and continuity of protection will remain. FCVic calls on the Commission to continue advocating for longer-term solutions that deliver reliable, accessible and consumer‑centred protections for households relying on life support equipment.

The Victorian Council of Social Service (VCOSS), alongside community services sector organisations and energy consumer advocates, has made a joint submission responding to the Essential Services Commission’s Victorian Default Offer (VDO) 2026–27 draft decision. The submission welcomes the draft decision’s proposed average three per cent reduction in electricity standing offer prices, noting any easing in the cost of an essential service will bring relief amid ongoing cost-of-living pressures. It also cautions that updated inputs ahead of the final decision, including network costs, could erode these savings, and highlights that the VDO rose sharply in 2023–24, with subsequent reductions not yet returning prices to earlier levels.

The submission situates the draft decision in the context of an emerging fuel supply crisis and outlines the flow-on impacts for households already under strain, as well as the community sector organisations supporting people experiencing payment difficulty. It reaffirms strong support for the VDO as a critical safeguard and benchmark for a fair and efficient market price, including its role as a price cap for customers in embedded networks. The submission also responds to the Victorian Government’s announced Midday Power Saver offer, welcoming potential benefits while emphasising that many households cannot shift usage to the middle of the day, and calling for robust regulatory safeguards, transparency, and complementary measures to deliver genuine affordability, including consideration of targeted supports such as a social tariff.

This is a joint submission made by:

• Victorian Council of Social Service (VCOSS)
• Community Information and Support Victoria
• Consumer Action Law Centre
• Council on the Ageing Victoria, and Seniors Rights Victoria
• Energy Consumers Australia
• Financial Counselling Victoria
• Uniting Vic Tas
• Westjustice