Who can ask for help?
Payment assistance is available to residential, small-business and not-for-profit customers who are having difficulty paying, whether the difficulty is short term or ongoing. Please contact us as early as you can. You do not need to wait until an account is overdue.
You may ask an authorised representative, financial counsellor or advocate to contact us for you. We will protect your privacy and only ask for information reasonably needed to understand what arrangement may be suitable.
Options we can consider
Assistance is tailored to your circumstances and capacity to pay. Available options may include:
Other arrangements may be available. We will not make you accept an option that does not reasonably suit your circumstances.
How we assess a request
We will discuss your circumstances, the service you need to maintain and what you can reasonably pay, while taking relevant circumstances into account. We aim to assess an application within 5 business days and tell you the outcome within 2 business days after completing the assessment.
There is no charge to apply. We focus on keeping customers connected and use restriction, suspension or disconnection only as a last resort and in accordance with applicable rules.
If an arrangement changes
Please contact us if your circumstances change or you cannot meet an agreed arrangement. We can review it with you. We may also contact you if payments are missed so that we can discuss what happens next.
Free financial counselling
The National Debt Helpline provides free, confidential financial counselling on 1800 007 007 or at ndh.org.au.
Complaints
If you are unhappy with a payment assistance decision or how we handled your request, see our Complaints Handling Policy. Urgent complaint timeframes may apply where an issue could make your financial situation worse.