Former Australian Competition and Consumer Commission chair Rod Sims said it's as simple as calling the companies in for a crisis meeting and packing a "baseball bat" in the government's knapsack.

The call comes as the federal government finalises its policy decision to tackle soaring cost-of-living prices in the lead up to Christmas.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers said the government had been considering a range of options, including making a voluntary code of conduct on gas companies mandatory and capping energy prices.

But Mr Sims, who held the regulator's top job for more than a decade until earlier this year, said the solution could be far simpler and acheived very quickly.

Rather than imposing a price cap on companies or switching the voluntary code to mandatory, Mr Sims argued the companies could be strongly reminded of the government's power to rein in their exports.

"There is a lever on the wall that can be pulled - it's not as if you have to create it," he told The Canberra Times last month.

"Sitting around the table with the gas producers has been done many times before. And so it can be done again.

"The government doesn't want to use [the export control lever], the export companies sure as hell don't want them to use it so just sitting there, with the baseball bat sticking out of the knapsack, while the meeting's on is all that's needed."

The gas companies are underpinned by export contracts, Mr Sims said, but the government could strongly urge them to release more gas domestically to drive down prices.

The five-year average spot price has ranged between $8 to $10 per gigajoule until recently, when it was driven up to $30 a gigajoule as a result of international events, such as Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Mr Sims said gas companies can supply the gas for that price, which would alleviate the strain on small businesses and households, and still make money.

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The latest federal budget forecast retail power prices will increase by an average of 20 per cent nationally by the end of this year and a further 30 per cent during 2023-24.

Gas prices are predicted to rise by 44 per cent during that time.

Treasury's forecasts threaten Labor's election promise to lower the average annual household electricity bill by $275 by 2025.

The competition watchdog last month said it was considering options, including the introduction of a "reasonable pricing" principle in the voluntary code of conduct.

Mr Sims said the regulator's role was critical to achieving lower gas prices in the coming months.

"Whatever you do, whether it's this meeting with the baseball bat in the backpack, or something stronger, you're going to need regulators to make sure that what's agreed, and what's understood, actually happens," he said.

"These agreements, even voluntary can work, I think, because you've still got the baseball bat in the backpack."

While Mr Sims said making the code of conduct mandatory wouldn't be his first choice, he conceded clarity was important in a time of crisis.

"I accept that probably an efficient way to do that is to make the code mandatory so that the obligations are clear," he said.

"If you don't do that, then it's a matter of getting voluntary agreement and if the ACCC says they're not doing it, then the government can legislate after that."