Energy retailers warn that government calls for the regulator to cut into their profits to push down prices for customers who don’t shop around would backfire and disadvantage the much bigger group of users who do seek deals, because it would limit their ability to offer discounts.
Federal Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen joined his state peers in NSW, Queensland and South Australia on Friday to “encourage” the Australian Energy Regulator to dig into retailer revenues and margins that drove its proposal this week to raise regulated power prices by up to 8.9 per cent in the middle of the year.
