ENERGY PROVIDERS

Dr CLOSE (Port Adelaide) (15:13): My office has been helping people in the Port Adelaide area to deal with the consequences of bad practice by some door-to-door energy salespeople, and I want to warn others of some of these practices. While I am sure that there are many good salespeople who are able to assist consumers to choose energy supplier contracts that suit their needs and minimise their costs, I am horrified at some of the stories that we are hearing in my office.

For example, some salespeople start off saying that they are not there to sell anything in order to get through the door but, before long, the conversation tries to get people to sign up to a new contract. Some sales people imply that the existing contractor has made an error in their zoning and that a new contract will bring a cheaper price when in fact that is not correct. In this case, it was only through the intercession of my office that the retailer restored the original contract for a hardworking Vietnamese businesswoman who was persuaded to sign a contract that would have vastly increased her electricity costs.

People who do not fully or explicitly inform the customer about the costs of ending their contracts; salespeople who deal with consumers who do not speak English well and do not make sure that they understand the terms of the proposed deal; or people who have mental health issues but are nonetheless pressed to make decisions with expensive consequences without sufficient time to get advice—these are examples that have come through the door of my electorate office.

I am sorry to say that while these salespeople are contractors—and I understand that the energy providers are challenged in ensuring their practices are ethical—the energy retailers themselves do not always make it easy for customers to deal with issues that have arisen as a result of these practices. All too often it takes a call from my office for the retailers to accept that the customer needs to be shown some flexibility. I ask that the retailers go out of their way to respond to customers who feel that they have been pressured into contracts by unethical door-to-door salespeople.

The law protects people who have been demonstrably misled but there are too many occasions when door-to-door salespeople use techniques that put people who are vulnerable or in some way unequal to dealing with their sales techniques under pressure to sign up to a contract that is not in their best interests. I urge anyone who find themselves in this situation to seek assistance, first from the retailer and, in the event that it is not sufficient, from consumer affairs. I urge anyone who works in this field to reflect that they have an ethical obligation to the people whose homes and businesses they are visiting to treat them with respect and to fully and completely explain the terms of any contract they are proposing.