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The founder of the industry benchmark, the World Retail Energy Market Rankings, VaasaETT
looks at contestable markets worldwide and seeks to rank them on the percentage of customers in
each market switching their electricity and gas providers each year.

The level of switching is a tangible barometer of both customers’ willingness to embrace retail
choice and the level of competition amongst energy companies in that market.
In 2008 Victoria had been the number one market in the World Retail Energy Market Rankings and
seems likely to hold on to that status in 2009 based on Australia only figures released by the
Energy Retailers Association of Australia (ERAA) and VaasaETT today (see attached).
They show that Victoria had a customer switching rate of 26.3% for gas and electricity in 2009
driven by the twelve or so retailers active in that market, the vast majority of which are ERAA
members.

According to Dr Philip Lewis, the Chief Executive of VaasaETT, “Victoria is the most consistent
highly active market in the world. It stands alone as the only market to have maintained a level of
annualised switching at or above 20% for the last five years. With the exception of Great Britain, all
other active markets in the world have historically fluctuated substantially in terms of activity. Some
have risen promisingly only to die out. Others come and go. Victoria has maintained permanent
competitive opportunities and pressures.”

The ERAA Executive Director, Cameron O’Reilly said the decision of the Victorian Government to
phase out retail energy price caps from 1 January, 2009 saw companies putting even more
resources into attracting customers in that state and into offering a wider variety of products to
households and businesses.

“Once you took away the risk of a regulator getting price setting wrong, the extremely competitive
market structure kept prices efficient while presaging a greater array of choice in product and
provider for Victorian consumers.”

"While done in the name of protecting consumers, retail price caps that remain in place in States
other than Victoria have simply reduced retailer and product choice in those markets”, Mr O’Reilly
said.