Help us tell the court what electricity consumers really think

My husband, who has had a stroke, and in a wheelchair during the day, is feeling the winter cold. We switch off the house heating at night and switch on again in the morning. We would appreciate leaving the heating on overnight to keep an even temperature for comfort and to dry clothes left on racks. 

reduced power by 50%, and gas by 80%. the manner in which the power companies do their accounting should be questioned closely. I think they probably write off their expenditure too quickly; ie charge too much of current expenditure which has long term life, against current revenue;ie.more expenditure should be capitalised, and then depreciated over the life of the plant. Additionally, when one observes their daily activities, they are OBVIOUSLY over manned when doing maintenance work, and also men work weekends far too often at excessive wage rates, no doubt. 

I would like to pay less for my electricity but not at the cost of reliable supply, maintenance quality and safety which is a huge concern for me living in a rural area of NSW. 

We have had to stop using our ducted heating because of the cost we have now installed two 400 wats covection heaters which we understand will only cost us 7 cent an hour each These heaters only take the chill off the room they dont make it a warm environment, if the cost of elecctricity was affordable we could use our ducted heating and enjoy a comforable Warm winter 

the government should not be able to take revenue from the various utilities. these should be allowed to cover their running cost and not be bled dry to support other sections of the budget. 

Service charges need to be reduced by making admin/ maintenance more efficient. 

The comments below say it all 

WE are 70 & 67yrs old we have a smart metre so we run our pool pump/ dish washer/ clothes dryer/ clothes washer/ do the cooking in the morning for tea/ installed 6 watt LED down lights/ threw out the electric radiator/ we still have the air conditioner so we some times switch that on about 5am for approximately 1 hour (only into the kitchen lounge & our bedroom that is amazing it warms the house by over 8 degrees and lasts till after 9am oh I nearly forgot switch off any lights not being used we dropped our power bill from approximately $800 to $400 

Before I retired I never imagined I would be unable to use some of my appliances eg dryer, heater/air-conditioner or spa. The supply charge is the most expensive part of our bill and will not reduce even if the price of electricity comes down or we conserve and use less. Even with the so-called gold plating of the poles and wires we still have blackouts quite regularly and can't leave sensor lights etc on if we are away from home. 

I have relocated from NSW to Victoria where there are higher tariffs. Being in a relatively new home of course there is one of those so-called Smart Meters, which says I am consuming almost twice as much power in Victoria, compared to NSW, despite the fact that I have solar hot water and a gas cook top. The "smart meter" says that I am using less now that the reverse cycle air con is operating for a few hours each day. Seems like I will have to pay someone to solve my problem.