Can Origin Energy disconnect me without warning?

No, not lawfully. Before Origin can disconnect a residential customer for an unpaid bill, the National Energy Retail Rules require it to have already warned the account is overdue, offered a payment plan or referred the customer to its hardship program, and given the required notice period before supply is actually cut. A disconnection that skips straight from "bill overdue" to "supply off," with no payment plan ever offered, is exactly the pattern the rules exist to prevent.

Retailers are also expected to try to contact you before disconnecting, and to hold off if you engage with them, for instance by proposing a payment arrangement. If Origin disconnected you while you were actively trying to arrange a payment plan, or while a billing dispute was genuinely unresolved, that disconnection is on shaky ground and worth challenging directly.

Put the dispute in writing: ask Origin for a full timeline of every notice sent, whether a payment plan was ever offered, and the exact reason given for disconnection. If the process was not followed properly, ask for immediate reconnection at no cost and compensation for the disruption, spoiled food, missed work, medical equipment, whatever genuinely applies. If Origin does not resolve this quickly, your state energy ombudsman, EWON, EWOV or EWOQ, can direct urgent reconnection and is free to use.