The below table sets out the key milestones planned for this review. 

*Dates are indicative and subject to change. 

On 18 May 2026, the AER published a consultation paper seeking stakeholder views on the AER’s proposal to amend the Network Exemptions Guideline and the Retail Exempt Selling Guideline to:

• reflect new energy rules relating to secondary settlement points and flexible metering flexible trading reforms and ensure our exemptions guidance remains clear and consistent
• reduce unnecessary regulatory burden for commercial embedded network retrofits while maintaining appropriate consumer protections for embedded network customers.

Our review is limited to the confined scope proposed in our consultation paper and does not propose to revisit the policy intent of the flexible trading rule change or the broader objectives of the exemptions framework.

Interested stakeholder are invited to email submissions by close of business Monday, 15 June 2026 to AERExemptionsaer [dot] gov [dot] au (AERExemptions[at]aer[dot]gov[dot]au) with the email subject header ‘Submission – Exemption guidelines review’.

Alternatively, submissions can be sent to:

Rebecca Holland
A/g General Manager, Compliance and Enforcement
Australian Energy Regulator
GPO Box 3131
Canberra ACT 2601

We prefer that all submissions be publicly available to facilitate an informed and transparent consultative process. Submissions will be treated as public documents unless otherwise requested. Parties wishing to submit confidential information should: 

• clearly identify the information that is the subject of the confidentiality claim; and
• provide a non-confidential version of the submission in a form suitable for publication.

We will place all non-confidential submissions on our website. For further information on our use and disclosure of information provided to us, see the