Review of life support protections in Victoria

Overview

We are reviewing the life support protections in Victoria to uplift ongoing protections for life support customers.

The Essential Services Commission is undertaking a review to strengthen protections for life support customers in Victoria. We are considering changes to existing rules to strengthen life support protections, including:

• strengthening provisions about life support registration and de-registration
• introducing a distinction between life support customers with critical and assistive needs so that energy businesses and emergency services can provide targeted assistance during power outages
• introducing a medical confirmation template so that energy businesses, customers and medical practitioners are clear on the information requirements to register a customer as a life support customer in Victoria.

Information session

The Essential Services Commission is holding a public information session on the proposed reforms.

We invite and encourage you to attend this information session to learn more about these proposed reforms and how you can contribute and provide feedback.

The information session will be held online from 10:00am – 11:30am on 14 August 2025 via Microsoft Teams. If you wish to attend, please register using this link.
 

How to participate

You are invited to submit written feedback to our consultation paper via Engage Victoria by 11.59pm on 4 September 2025.

We will continue to proactively engage with the community, industry, community organisations and advocacy groups, government departments and agencies through individual meetings as this review progresses.

You can contact us via email, mail or phone.

• Email: energyreform@esc.vic.gov.au
• Mail: Essential Services Commission, Level 8, 570 Bourke Street, Melbourne Victoria 3000
• Phone: +61 3 9032 6290

We are also open to meeting with you to discuss specific feedback and encourage you to get in touch to discuss this option.

If English is not your first language, please contact TIS National on 131 450 to make your submission using an interpreter.

Next steps

After the initial round of consultation, we will review stakeholder feedback on the consultation paper to help inform our draft decision. Our draft decision is expected to be released for public consultation in late 2025.

Submissions to the consultation paper will be published on the commission’s website, except for any information that is commercially sensitive or confidential (as specified by stakeholders), in accordance with our Submissions Policy.