We uncovered 15 significant systemic issues across electricity, gas and water providers over the past 18 months, resulting in thousands of Victorians being affected by repeated or ongoing service failures.
These problems are detailed in our Systemic Issues Report 2025, released today.
As the Energy and Water Ombudsman Victoria (EWOV), we are in a unique position to see consumers’ experiences with energy and water services, in real time, across all retailers.
The issues we've investigated relate to life support customer protections, complaint handling, support for customers experiencing payment difficulty and broader provider processes and practices.
Our role is to ensure that consumers who come to us with complaints have been treated fairly and that their provider has met its obligations and commitments. When we uncover a pattern of complaints, we have strong investigation processes in place. We bring these to the attention of providers, and when necessary to the Essential Services Commission.
EWOV Ombudsman and CEO Catherine Wolthuizen shared, “Our Systemic Issues Report 2025 sets out where and how EWOV has driven change in energy and water, and provides lessons and guidance from our work to support better practice by the industry.”
Examples of systemic failures
In one investigation, a customer had their electricity disconnected and sought assistance from their retailer to apply for a Utility Relief Grant. Despite being obligated to help, the retailer refused to assist with the application and instead required the customer to pay 50% of the outstanding balance for reconnection, without offering a payment plan.
This approach was not an isolated incident, but reflective of the retailer’s broader practices, meaning other customers were likely to have been adversely impacted.
The Utility Relief Grant scheme is designed to help people in low-income households or experiencing financial hardship. In this environment, it is critical for providers to ensure they are taking all possible steps to assist consumers with payment difficulty problems.
Following our investigation and guidance – including reference to better practice standards from the Australian Energy Council – the retailer committed to changing its processes.
Improving outcomes for Victorian consumers
We identify systemic issues by analysing trends and assessing whether individual complaints point to underlying provider policies or practices. Once an issue is identified, we work closely with providers to understand the cause, assess the impact on consumers and recommend solutions.
Over the past year, our systemic issues work has resulted in:
- Improvements to provider policies and processes
- Enhanced training for customer-facing staff
- Influenced regulatory action
- Financial redress for affected customers
- Upgrades to provider systems and technology.
These outcomes strengthen protections for all Victorians by resolving today’s issues and reducing the likelihood of similar problems occurring in the future.
Supporting better practice across the sector
By publishing the Systemic Issues Report 2025, we aim to support industry-wide improvements and encourage providers to proactively address risk of consumer harm in their policies and practices.
Sharing these learnings helps prevent unnecessary harm and promotes fair and effective customer service across the energy and water sectors.