Mathers Mojo: Electricity Transparency Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMathers Mojo: Electricity Transparency Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 02 December 2015. Volume:710;Page:8527. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]MOJO MATHERS (Green): It is a pleasure to stand up and support this bill. The Green Party supports transparency. It supports consumers’ right to know. I am amazed sitting here listening to speeches that people are arguing against transparency—against consumers’ right to know. I find that highly offensive to consumers. We have the right to know what components make up our power bills. We should not be patronised by National and ACT and be told: “Oh you don’t need to know this information. We’ll take care of that for you.” That is incredibly patronising. Power is a significant part of people’s daily expenses and we have the right to be able to be fully informed and decide for ourselves which power supplier we will use. There will be many decisions and factors that go into weighing up who we will use and consumers are not going to switch suppliers at the drop of a hat. It is a cumbersome process—ringing up sorting it out trying to work out who is available and so on—so the kind of scenario that was being outlined by Mr Seymour I did not find very credible.The reality is that consumers are going to sit down and really think about who they want to be their main electricity provider and they are going to weigh up different elements about what works for them what is their pattern of power consumption do they have an overnight storage heater is there a lower side rate available where are they in the country and also the right to know how that power is being generated is really important especially in today’s climate. When climate change is one of the most incredibly challenging issues that we face we have the right to know as consumers exactly what proportion of our power bill is made up of renewable energy and is generated from renewable sources. That is an important piece of information and consumers have the right to know and access that information and should not have to go hunting for it. To have it presented on the power bill is an incredibly important part of transparency and we the Green Party support Shearer’s bill for bringing in transparency for us to be able to act upon. It is incredibly important.It is important also to be fully informed so that we know how we can conserve energy. If we know that the bulk of our power bill is made up from line charges there is not going to be a lot that we can do to conserve energy. So greater billing transparency is a good thing and it is incredibly patronising and unbelievable that National and ACT can stand up there and say they do not support transparency and they do not support consumers’ right to information. I find that absolutely staggering. Why not? Why should we not be informed? It has been proposed before but the industry lobbied against it. Yes there are some new reforms coming in but they are much weaker than what is proposed in this Electricity Transparency Bill.I commend Shearer for bringing it to the House. We will be voting for it. We are in favour of transparency. We are in favour of consumers’ rights to know and to be able to make informed decisions around which electricity supplier they will use. Thank you.