It has been a cold, wet winter – bad for sickness, bad for mould and bad for energy bills.

“I've been working in community services for 25 years and we've never seen this degree of food poverty and energy poverty,” says Nicky Sloan, CEO of Community Industry Group, the peak body for the not-for-profit sector across southern NSW.

“One of the things that we don't realise in Australia is that more people die of the cold than die of the heat. It's because our houses are not very well set up for that, and that's why we use so much energy in the winter, trying to keep these houses warm. 

“Often people on the very lowest income live in the very least well-insulated homes, have the least energy-efficient appliances, and that's why energy poverty really kicks in at this time of year.”

Nicky, who is based in Port Kembla, says Illawarra neighbourhood centres are swamped with people in need. “They're oversubscribed anyway, but at this time of year, in particular, because people's energy bills are so bad.” 

Some people are using butane heaters to stay warm and to cook. “We are hearing of people doing that because it's cheap, but unfortunately, it’s really, really unsafe.

“I've got lots of examples of older people who are making some pretty diabolical choices.

“We have people going inside earlier than afternoon, shutting all the doors and windows, sitting in the dark, wearing a blanket to try and stay warm, because they’re afraid to use any form of heating. 

"And then we have people on very low incomes making choices about things like whether to eat or whether to have their medicine, or whether to have some form of heating.”

Elderly people often take pride in being energy savers, Nicky says. They’ll tell how they shut blinds, block draughts with 'door snakes', line windows with newspaper, and rug up. “Those furry minky blankets have been very popular,” she says.

Pride has other knock-on effects: people might not invite friends or family over as they’d feel obliged to put on the heating, and staying home means they’re lonely. 

“The cold can lead to people being very socially isolated and that can have really bad ramifications for people's mental health,” Nicky says.

Power to the people

While politicians have gone nuclear in their debate about energy costs decades into the future, here and now experts are calling for structural reform of the energy market to bring prices down.

As reported recently in Rooftop solar is the people’s revolution, Ty Christopher, Director of the Energy Futures Network at the University of Wollongong, has said the current rules and regulations are “not fit for purpose” due to the massive uptake of rooftop solar. 

To put consumers’ needs first, Ty says we need to “fundamentally restructure” the boards of the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) and the Australian Energy Market Commission (AEMC). He would like to see these boards stacked with members from the not-for-profit sector. 

“I'm thinking here about representatives from, say, the Salvation Army and Energy Ombudsman,” he says. “People who are seeing in real time, in their main reason for being, the real impacts of energy poverty and of cost-of-living crisis.

“That would be, I think, the best thing to bring down electricity prices and shift the focus in the electricity market onto better use of distributed energy resources – solar, batteries, etcetera – and bring about more democratic access to clean energy.” 

Nicky thinks more not-for-profit representatives on energy market boards is a great idea.

“I completely concur with that. I think it's just so important to hear from the people who are often the most voiceless. I wish all advisory bodies would make sure that there were representatives who are always there to be able to speak about the most vulnerable in our community. Because I think that's the only way that social justice will ever really be done.”

AEMO operates the energy market; it is a public company limited by guarantee (a common structure for not-for-profits that reinvest profit towards the organisation's purposes) and has two types of members: government (60%) and industry (40%). AEMC makes and revises energy market rules; it is an independent statutory body funded by state governments. 

Between them, these two market bodies employ some highly paid people. At the top, according to FY23 annual reports, some are on over $800,000 a year – more than Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who earns $607,500.

For Nicky – who deals daily with enormous need – the idea of such highly paid bureaucrats running the energy market is worrying. 

“You're so far removed from the impacts of your decision-making,” she says. “I just think if you are earning those six-figure sums, you've got no concept of what it's like to be struggling on less than $30 an hour.”

Inequality and the rise of the 'working homeless'

Working in social services – a sector Nicky says is mostly filled by women on “very low salaries” – means being on the frontline of rising inequality. Nicky sees the shortage of everything, from aged care placements to affordable rentals, so some people are sleeping in cars to avoid being parted from their pets.

“We've got some of the wealthiest suburbs and some of the poorest suburbs within our own region,” she says, pointing to the recent Inequality in Australia 2024 report by the Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS) and UNSW Sydney. “It just shows how much divide there is now between the haves and the have-nots, and the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer, and the poor are bearing the brunt of these energy decisions. And they're the ones who really need help.”

The current cost-of-living crisis is adding to the pressure.

“We've always had people who are poor,” Nicky says. “In all societies you have people who are poor and for various reasons are suffering disadvantage. But what we are seeing now for the first time is the working poor and the working homeless – which is just dreadful. 

“Our neighbourhood centres and our emergency service organisations are seeing families, where sometimes both parents are working, but they cannot pay their bills and put meals on the table. 

“Unfortunately, by the time those kinds of people are coming to neighbourhood centres, or any other kind of emergency relief centres, they're desperate. 

“We are seeing much more increase in demand and a really high degree of desperation. So one of the things we often call out for is that, if you need help, please reach out early – before things get absolutely critical.”

Changing the system 

To combat energy poverty, Nicky would like to see housing standards for both social housing and rental housing that include a degree of energy efficiency and insulation for all properties. 

“We recently saw in the Federal Budget, energy rebates for everybody. That money would be much better spent targeting just people on very low incomes …

"We know that people are living on less than $50 a day and you can't afford your energy bills on that kind of money. 

“I would love to see an increase in income support for people who are the most vulnerable in our community.”

Want to help?

Nicky recommends donating to your local grassroots charity.

“Go to your local neighbourhood centre and ask them, you know, what do people around here need? What could we donate to them? Go to places like MCCI or the Homeless Hub and see what is needed to support local people, because, yes, people locally are doing it really, really tough.”