The Commission's Role

The Commission is responsible for the regulation of prices for certain monopoly services, licensing of regulated industry participants, and monitoring the performance of regulated operators. The Commission also investigates and helps to resolve complaints relating to the conduct of licensees, provides consumers and others with information and provides advice to the Minister.

In performing these functions, the Commission has regard to the need to promote competitive and fair market conduct and to prevent the misuse of monopoly or market power, as well as to facilitate entry into the market and to promote economic efficiency. In addition, the Commission seeks to ensure that consumers benefit from competition and efficiency, and to protect their interests with regard to reliability and quality of services and supply. The Commission must also consider the need to maintain the financial viability of regulated industries and to ensure an appropriate rate of return on regulated infrastructure assets.

The Commission is a separate administrative unit established within the NT Treasury, but has specific statutory powers and undertakes its considerations independently from Treasury.

While the Commission was established initially to play a regulatory role in the Territory's electricity supply market, it's functions have been expanded to include a regulatory role in the water and sewerage services industries within a sole supplier model.

Related regulatory entities

The Commission undertakes its regulatory functions in the Territory’s regulated industries in conjunction with other regulatory entities, notably:

• the “Regulatory Minister”, currently the Treasurer;

• the Safety Regulator – part of NT Worksafe, located in the Department of Employment, Education and Training – who has responsibility under the Electricity Reform Act for monitoring and enforcing safety standards, and for establishing and enforcing safety-related standards for electrical equipment;

• the Chief Health Officer – located in Territory Health Services – who has responsibility under the Water Supply and Sewerage Services Act for monitoring and enforcing certain standards with respect to the water and sewerage industries; and

• the NT Ombudsman, who continues to have responsibility for investigating complaints from non-contestable electricity, water supply and sewerage services customers.