Running While Others Walk

This morning I took Austin and his pushchair around Sydney’s famous Bay Run – a 7km loop around Iron Cove in the city’s inner west. It’s a beautiful run and one of a handful of reasons we choose to live in Rozelle.

Moving forward at a more pedestrian pace, I was disappointed to discover later in the day, is the evolution of competition in Australia’s deregulated utilities markets. It was awful when I moved here in 2001 and nothing much seems to have changed.

The strategy seems to be to use confusion to breed conservatism and protect the status quo. In a competitive market where there is choice of provider but it’s impossible to fully understand their offers, why wouldn’t you stick with the name you know? That, of course, would be the former monopoly.

After a brief online review of home phone and broadband offers, I decided to park those particular projects. Today’s task is gas and electricity, but my call to AGL – the dominant force in gas and now also offering electricity – left me wanting to repeat the Bay Run. The heat would by now be unbearable but at least it would be a positive use of my energy.

Nice call centre chap, though, and I quickly learn that a five per cent discount would apply if I signed up for both gas and power. My temptation had been to do what I’d done before and have AGL for one and Energy Australia the other, but the discount sounds good so we keep the chat going.

It’s then I learn that the discount only kicks in if you sign up for two year’s. So much for the basics of bundling - it’s not ten per cent and it's certainly not creative marketing. There is the benefit of a single bill, but, let's face it, that’s designed to help the utilities cut the cost of customer service and improve what they call ‘debt management’.

Still, when I ask about the break clause there's only a tiny wee penalty so what the hell.

So, having covered off the five per cent and the two years – the only two boxes it seems need to be ticked – we move straight to the voice recorded contact. In the middle of this my AGL pal tells me that my (post switch-on) welcome pack will include their gas and electricity rates.

Interesting sense of timing.

He offers, though, to run through them now. Nice save. What he doesn’t know is that I’m a stay-at-home dad with a sleeping baby.

I surprise him by accepting. Check mate.

But not quite game over, and the next bit really does sum up the problem with these deregulated markets. I’m quoted daily charges for both electricity and gas and the two tiers of peak rates that apply to each. What I’m not told (as he reads the script the marketing people gave him) is what the peak period and off peak charges are. Having asked the $64,000 question, I’m still expected to sign a two-year contract without knowing the price of the services.

Even telcos don’t treat you like this.

It’s possible, of course, that all the information I seek is in this wonderful welcome pack. Where’s it's not is on the AGL website. Nor is Energy Australia’s on theirs, and a call to them with a question about rates was met only with a run-down of their flat off-peak charge.

Peak with one, off peak with the other. Apples and pears. Welcome back to Australia.