Our power pains

IT IS no secret that rising power and utility costs are driving many Victorians to despair.

At the Addy we have been running a campaign aimed at state and federal governments to Zap These Bills.

We want our political leaders to focus on consumer and energy policies that will give us a break, a fair go and will result in lower power prices.

But as bad a feeling as opening that bill with the sky high figure is — there’s a consumer fate even worse.

And that is getting your gas, electricity or water cut off or restricted when you believe that action has been taken wrongly or without enough fair warning or proper process.

As we reveal today consumers in the Geelong council area made the most complaints in the state to the Energy and Water Ombudsman after having their electricity or gas cut off or their water supply restricted.

With power prices rising and these companies making fat profits surely greater care needs to be taken to give procedural fairness to those who fall behind.

As the Ombudsman notes many of these situations involve complicated matters and vulnerable people.

You can imagine how hard it might be for an elderly customer to pick their way through the increasingly automated and impersonal new world of customer relations.

Anything less that proper procedural fairness for the customer before cutting them off is simply “robber baron” capitalism with little concern for common humanity.