Our open letter to the energy sector and new strategy to support customers affected by family violence

Designed to Disrupt: Safety by design for essential services by Catherine Fitzpatrick was published on 19 May 2025. This discussion paper has come out of the safety by design partnership established by the Essential Services Commission of Victoria in August 2024.

The discussion paper has highlighted that family violence perpetrators exploit essential services to cause harm using tactics such as accumulating debt, avoiding payment, sabotaging services and controlling access to bills. It calls for a whole-of-sector response to prevent the weaponisation of energy debt and misuse of energy accounts by perpetrators of family violence and financial abuse.

Energy businesses play a critical role in preventing essential services and energy debt from being weaponised. However, it is clear from the paper’s findings that the sector needs to do more. In an open letter to the energy sector, we call on industry to make its services safer for customers affected by family violence.

We also recognise the AER’s role in preventing the misuse of products and services for family violence and financial abuse. To support this, we developed a new Strategy to support a safer energy market for customers affected by family violence. This strategy reflects our commitment to working with the sector to prevent essential services and energy debt from being weaponised.

The strategy includes three key priorities for the AER:

1. Building organisational awareness and capability within the AER.
2. Supporting a regulatory framework that enables safety by design.
3. Encouraging regulated entities to prioritise safety in their businesses.

These priorities reflect what we have learned through our work in this space so far, including as a member of the advisory group for the safety by design partnership. We expect this strategy to evolve over time as we continue to learn more about how we can best ensure the energy market is safe for customers affected by family violence.

We look forward to working together with both the sector and with other regulators to improve the safety of energy services and products.