State/Territory Governments and energy retailers must put in place a ban on energy disconnections for prepayment customers during extreme heat.
That's the call from a new campaign called Don't Switch Us Off.
More than 15,000 First Nations households, or 65,000 people, access electricity through prepayment. When the credit runs out, the power cuts off automatically, even in dangerous heat.
Losing power means households can't safely store medicines and food or keep their homes at safe temperatures. Regular disconnections are driven by energy affordability challenges and disrupt whole communities.
Prepayment energy meters are the default or mandated arrangement across WA's Kimberley region, urban and remote parts of the Northern Territory, Far North Queensland and the Torres Strait, and more recently the APY Lands and Far West Coast communities in South Australia.
Capital cities average 4 days or fewer over 40°C a year. Remote communities face many times more, and disconnections more than double when temperatures pass 40 degrees celsius across most prepayment regions.
The first national investigation into First Nations experiences of prepayment for electricity, by Original Power and the First Nations Clean Energy Network, in partnership with Western Sydney University, Tangentyere Aboriginal Corporation, Nulungu Research Institute and Jabalbina Aboriginal Corporation, produced The Right to Power report.
It draws on interviews with over 300 households, service providers and electricity retailers, and data from approximately 10,000 household meters.
Researchers found there were 440,000 disconnection events impacting 8,878 households across three States and Territories during a 12-month period.
The research found First Nations energy customers using prepayment are among the world's most energy insecure.
The Don't Switch Us Off campaign led by Original Power is aimed at State/Territory Governments and energy retailers to put in place a ban on energy disconnections for prepayment customers during extreme heat -- based on recommendation four from The Right to Power report: Implement measures to assist vulnerable people during extreme temperatures and other emergency events.