The AER has released the draft decision for its Review of the exemptions framework for embedded networks, along with amendments to the Network Exemptions Guideline and Retail Exempt Selling Guideline for consultation.
The AER commenced the review in November 2023 to better understand the potential harms and benefits customers experience in embedded networks, and consult on options to take action under the guidelines. The AER released an issues paper and received 37 submissions.
The draft decision released today, sets out our consideration of the major policy issues we raised in the issues paper and response to feedback received during the consultation. It also highlights the need for governments to take action to address key consumer protection gaps that are outside the scope of the AER’s regulatory powers, such as lack of Retailer of Last Resort and price cap protections.
We are consulting on amendments to our guidelines to address key issues such as:
- increasing our oversight of small networks, by closing the deemed exemption classes (in effect, requiring all new networks to register an exemption) and introducing new requirements for sellers to keep key registration details up to date.
- strengthening consumer protections, including through introducing new family violence protections.
We invite stakeholder submissions on the proposed amendments by Monday, 28 April 2025, which can be sent to AERexemptions
aer [dot] gov [dot] au (AERexemptions[at]aer[dot]gov[dot]au).
These submissions will inform our final guidelines, which we aim to publish in the third quarter of 2025.