The Guarantee of Origin scheme matters because it gives Traditional Owners and First Nations groups a new set of tools to hold developers accountable and to leverage an emerging policy framework for lasting value.

First Nations and Traditional Owners can use the GO Scheme in practice for:

• Leverage in negotiations and an insight into the values of developers
• Pathways to ownership
• Recognition for consent and partnerships
• Economic growth and procurement
• Employment, heritage and benefit-sharing.
  

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Australian First Nations households and communities accessing electricity through prepayment arrangements experience extremely high levels of energy insecurity. In many cases, there is an absence of consumer protections, financial hardship assistance, or debt and disconnection relief. Until recently, these arrangements have largely avoided scrutiny.

While awareness of prepayment for electricity has improved, our research is the first national project to shine a spotlight on the previously hidden experiences of First Nations households using prepayment. The research incorporates household surveys and household-level energy use data to show that frequent disconnections are impacting food security, health, wellbeing and economic participation for First Nations prepayment customers.

Australia is entering a new era of energy-driven economic development, powered by the potential of lower cost renewables. The consent for access to First Nations’ extensive land and sea estates will be needed. It is incumbent on leaders and policymakers to recognise those same communities remain at risk of being left behind; underserved by policy and regulation to pursue opportunities that would secure their own energy futures.

To overcome these structural disadvantages Australian governments must be guided by existing frameworks, including the First Nations Clean Energy Strategy and Closing the Gap targets, and take action to ensure regulators and energy retailers work together to improve the experiences of First Nations people across all key reform areas.

There is considerable scope and opportunity for existing processes to include prepayment customers, and to bring regulation, reporting requirements and policy responses for prepayment customers in line with National Energy Market rules and regulatory standards.

Energy is an essential service that must be accessible by all, regardless of billing arrangements, location or income level. This can be achieved through the application of a nationally consistent consumer protection framework and guaranteed service levels for all customer groups.

The overarching goal of this research and associated proposals for prepayment reform is to keep First Nations people connected to power. This is consistent with wider recognition of energy as an essential service and that no- one should be disconnected due to inability to afford the energy they need.

Cite: Original Power and the prepay research team (2025) The Right to Power - Keeping First Nations communities on prepayment connected. Melbourne, Australia.

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We support VicGrid’s intent to create a predictable, orderly approach to grid access. Despite these intentions, we feel the draft companion documents as released do not yet deliver the binding protections, resourcing or decision-making roles necessary for Traditional Owners to exercise meaningful consent over outcomes on Country.

In particular, the Grid Impact Assessment (GIA) and Access and Connections proposals must explicitly recognise Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) for transmission corridors and Renewable Energy Zone (REZ) siting that materially affect cultural values and Country, and the Community Engagement and Social Value Guidelines must be elevated from guidance to enforceable eligibility criteria for grid access. 

In our submission, we have identified key issues, recommendations and drawn on international examples that actualise FPIC, co-design, meaningful engagement and benefit sharing. We have also provided in the Appendix a range of international examples drawing on embedding FPIC, co-design and benefit sharing. 

The Network’s core recommendations are: 

1. First Nations decision-making and consent — require FPIC for actions that materially affect cultural heritage, Country and First Nations economic interests and embed Traditional Owner decision-making and rights into VicGrid processes; 
2. Binding benefit-sharing and economic participation — require legally enforceable benefit-sharing arrangements, procurement targets, and long-term revenue streams for Traditional Owners; 
3. Cultural heritage and Country protections — statutory spatial exclusion zones, rigorous cultural heritage assessment protocols, and prohibitions on activities where consent is refused; 
4. Capacity — guaranteed, up-front capacity and technical support for Traditional Owner groups to participate effectively; and 
5. Transparency, monitoring and enforcement — clear performance indicators, public reporting, and a fast, culturally appropriate dispute resolution mechanism. 

Absent explicit legal status for FPIC, binding benefit-sharing and adequate resourcing, the Victorian Access Regime risks repeating historic patterns of extractive development that exclude First Nations people. 

Read our submission 

Inequalities in income, housing, and health between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians are well documented, yet differences in energy outcomes remain understudied.

While prior research has largely focused on remote areas or specific aspects, this paper provides the first national-level analysis of Indigenous households’ experiences in the energy market, measuring the existence, scale, and structural drivers of energy inequality.

Two indicators are examined: difficulties in paying energy bills on time and self-reported inability to heat homes adequately.

Across two decades and independent datasets, Indigenous households are 9–10 percentage points more likely to experience energy stress, a difference that persists after accounting for income.

Wealth emerges as the strongest explanatory factor, with housing tenure, education, and financial resilience also contributing substantially.

Objective measures—arrears, disconnections, and hardship program participation—account for around 43% of the observed gap and provide practical means of identifying households at risk of energy stress.

Energy stress is highly persistent, with households that had prior bill payment difficulties 47 percentage points more likely to encounter similar challenges again in 2023.

These findings show that energy inequality is not merely a matter of short-term affordability but reflects deeper structural dimensions of economic inequality.

Policies centred on income support alone are unlikely to eliminate these disparities. Access to modest emergency funds of only a few thousand dollars reduces the observed gap by about 73%, highlighting the potential of targeted, government-backed assistance to strengthen household resilience and prevent disconnections.

Authors: Rohan Best & Duygu Yengin & Andrew Taylor & Maneka Jayasinghe & Ruth Wallace, 2025. "Energy Inequality for Indigenous Australians: Evidence on Structural Drivers Across Two Decades," School of Economics and Public Policy Working Papers 2025-06 Classification-., University of Adelaide, School of Economics and Public Policy.

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In Australia, prepayment is ubiquitous in remote First Nations communities but is rarely used or banned in other locations.

Prepayment for household electricity services disrupts energy access by privatising the risks of disconnection within vulnerable households, justifying critical appraisal of the rationalisations and policy settings for its use.

Despite a growing literature documenting the potential harms of prepay and its concentration in remote and predominantly Indigenous households, these issues have received limited attention in Australian energy policy debates.

To progress the policy discourse, this qualitative study examines the policy origins and dominant rationales for use of prepay in different parts of Australia using causal process tracing.

Drawing on an original dataset of over 1650 publicly accessible documents from the period 1973–2023, a chronology is established showing that prepay systems were first introduced in remote Indigenous communities in Queensland and the Northern Territory with subsequent use in varying contexts in Tasmania, Western Australia and South Australia.

Policy motivations differ between grid interconnected regions and remote Indigenous settlements.

In interconnected regions, prepay emerged as a voluntary product associated with competitive retail market reforms and was subject to varying degrees of regulation but is now either banned or no longer offered by retailers.

By contrast, in remote and some urban Indigenous communities prepay endures as a default or mandatory payment system – highlighting how settler colonial energy policies have consistently prioritised supply-side objectives within under-served communities subject to past and present injustices including pervasive energy insecurity.

Author: Sally Wilson, Disrupting household energy rights: Examining the policy origins of prepayment for electricity services in Australia, Energy Research & Social Science, Volume 124, 2025,

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Remote communities often receive significantly reduced levels of public services compared to the rest of Australia. In addition, often these communities are not connected to Australia’s interconnected electricity systems and are not covered by the same regulatory and policy frameworks designed to protect consumer interests. In particular, remote First Nations communities often receive lower public service levels and consumer protections to those provided to other parts of Australia.

For many remote First Nations communities, increasingly regular temperature and climatic extremes are exacerbating energy insecurity issues.

In addition to the issue of regulatory disparities, other arrangements for the current supply of electricity in remote First Nations communities means that members of these communities are unable to participate in and benefit from Australia’s energy transition - e.g. to access the economic
(and associated cultural, health, education and wellbeing) benefits associated with household solar and battery.

Our submission to the Joint Select Committee on Northern Australia’s Inquiry into Energy, Food and Water Security offers three recommendations, including:

1. Ensure the proper implementation and resourcing of the First Nations Clean Energy Strategy so it can achieve its objectives, including through regular reporting at Energy Ministers’ meetings on the steps taken to implement the First Nations Clean Energy Strategy and progress towards meeting its objectives.
2. Ensure that energy systems in First Nations communities are designed to best meet, at least cost to First Nations community members, the economic and social needs of First Nations community members - and which enables First Nations community members to participate in and benefit from Australia’s energy transition.
3. Ensure that First Nations community members/energy consumers in remote locations are protected by equivalent regulatory and policy frameworks that support and protect energy consumers in more populous parts of Australia.

Read our submission here

Access to energy is a fundamental right. Yet land critical to Australia’s aspirations for becoming a green energy superpower are among the worst served by today’s electricity retail regulations.

Australia’s remote landscapes soak up some of the highest levels of solar irradiation on the planet. And as they also attract increasing interest in the renewable energy bonanza, Indigenous landowners are positioning to power up their communities and a brighter, cleaner future. Jordyn Beazley reports.