How we identify, support and protect customers affected by family violence — in line with rule 76A of the National Energy Retail Rules and equivalent state-based requirements. Customer safety, privacy and choice always come first.
If you are in immediate danger, call 000. For 24/7 confidential family violence counselling, call 1800RESPECT on 1800 737 732. For more support services see our Family violence support page.
Stake Energy and Macarthur Energy Retail Pty Ltd, the AER-authorised retailer and retailer of record, are committed to providing a safe, respectful and confidential service for any customer who is, or has been, affected by family violence. We recognise that family violence affects people of all genders, backgrounds, ages and abilities, and that it has serious financial and energy-related consequences.
This policy applies to all of our staff and any third parties acting on our behalf.
We use the broad definitions of family violence and family member used in the Family Violence Protection Act 2008 (Vic) and equivalent state laws. It includes physical, sexual, emotional, psychological, economic and technology-facilitated abuse, threats, coercion and any behaviour that controls or dominates a family member or causes them to fear for their or another person's safety.
Energy-related forms of economic abuse can include: running up energy debt in another person's name, denying access to bills or account information, restricting use of energy in the home, or using account access to monitor or coerce a person.
Your safety is our highest priority. We will:
We will only collect, use or disclose information about your family violence circumstances with your express consent and only to provide the support you've asked for. Information is recorded in a way that limits visibility to trained staff. We will not share your information with the person using violence against you.
If you are a joint account holder, we will follow the protections set out in our Privacy Policy and the National Energy Retail Rules to protect your personal information from any joint account holder where there is a family violence concern.
On request, we can:
If family violence has caused or contributed to financial difficulty, you are automatically eligible for assistance under our Hardship Policy. We will:
All customer-facing staff complete family-violence training when they join us and refresher training each year. Our hardship and complaints teams have additional, specialist training in trauma-informed practice. We have a dedicated Vulnerable Customer Lead responsible for this policy and our staff training program.
You can authorise a friend, family member, support worker, financial counsellor or community legal centre to deal with us on your behalf. We will require basic identity confirmation but we will not require the person using violence against you to be present or notified.
We will accept that you are affected by family violence on your word. We will not require you to provide:
If you choose to share documentation, we will store it securely and only for as long as needed.
A printed copy of this Policy is available free of charge on request, in any format that is safe for you to receive. For specialist family-violence support and other services, see our Family violence support page.
