Curran Clare: Smart Meters (Consumer Choice) Bill — First Reading 
Curran Clare: Smart Meters (Consumer Choice) Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:662;Page:10793] 
CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South) 
: 
 Poor value for money—that was the Treasury advice on the Government’s so-called jobs package last August. Do we have more jobs? No we have fewer jobs and 168000 people are unemployed. More jobs are disappearing offshore every day and the Government has refused to invest in jobs and skills. 
The fact is that this Government is not very smart but here we are talking today on a bill about smart meters that is intended to put the power back into the hands of consumers. The Smart Meters (Consumer Choice) Bill is timely and it should be supported. Unfortunately it will go nowhere because we have a Government that is stuck in mundane and bland thinking. It does not see its role as being to invest in skills and jobs let alone to promote new technologies to deliver new policy directions and transform our economy and society. I will talk about smart thinking something this Government does not do. I am deadly serious about it because if we do not do some smart thinking then we will stand still as an economy. 
The communications revolution means massive changes in the way that we live work and communicate which has an impact on health care education and environmental services. It requires collaboration between various industries such as utilities services the telecommunications companies and the information technology sector. I wish that I could stand here in this House today and say that is what is happening in this country but unfortunately it is not. 
Despite a big plan to put $1.5 billion into ultra-fast broadband this Government is doing very little thinking about what it will use that broadband for or about how it can drive demand and help transform our society to deliver better education health services and energy services through new technology. Instead that thinking is going on in Australia. Its smart thinking is being led from the top. The Rudd Government has made the connection between smart meters new technology and energy efficiency and the importance of having the Government drive change for the good of all society. 
In Australia a fundamental shift has taken place in environmental policy since 2007. That has had a huge effect on the utilities market. For the information and communications technology and the energy industries Government initiatives on smart meters and national fibre telecommunications networks are moving in new directions such as towards smart grids. By mid-2010 the outlines of Australia’s first smart grid project should become visible starting in Victoria. The major players are mostly large energy retailers and producers supported by information technology and telecommunications firms. 
The Australians grasp that smart meters should only be considered in the broader context of the modernisation of electricity networks that introduced sensing communications and information technology on to the grid. Reputable Australian telecommunications analyst Paul Budde has talked about trans-sector thinking. He has talked about how the Australian Government is leading on all infrastructure projects and on the potential synergies between the building of roads sewerage systems and water and gas pipe networks and telecommunications and electricity networks. The concept of smart communities is based on intelligent infrastructure such as broadband and smart grids. 
In this country one would hope that there would be smart thinking by our Government to go with the delivery of broadband and that the Government would think of putting broadband in place to make sure that people in communities are better connected with services that link their homes to broadband. What are we doing as a Government to make that happen? Well stuff-all as it happens. 
I sit on the Commerce Committee. Last year a stream of State-owned electricity companies came before the committee for their financial reviews: Meridian Energy Genesis Mighty River Power Transpower and the Electricity Commission. I asked every one of them the same question and I got virtually the same answer from each of them. That question was whether given that the efficient use of electricity and saving power is a key issue for our time any more work was being done on it and whether the organisation was doing any thinking about where we are going next. The answer consistently was: “Not much.” Then I asked whether they were aware of the work being undertaken in Australia and other countries on smart grids and whether they were doing any thinking about that. The answer was “Yes” to the first part of the question and “Um no” to the second part. I rest my case. No smart thinking is being promoted by this Government in the electricity industry. 
There is a huge opportunity to use this bill to propel thinking about how to better use smart meters. We could use new technologies to build smarter communities to save people on their fuel bills and to save energy.