Mahuta Nanaia: Electricity Industry Bill — In Committee 
Mahuta Nanaia: Electricity Industry Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:667;Page:14151] 
Hon NANAIA MAHUTA (Labour—Hauraki-Waikato) 
: 
 The one Government member Aaron Gilmore who got to his feet and made a few comments needs to be challenged on a number of fronts. First of all that member said that Labour increased the amount of bureaucracy in the system. Well we had an Electricity Commission and it will be replaced by an Electricity Authority a Security and Reliability Council and other advisory groups. If that is not more bureaucracy I do not know what is. But that member clearly did not read the bill. In fact what the Government has done is get rid of the Electricity Commission and replace it with an authority a Security and Reliability Council and other advisory groups—more bureaucracy. That member was Aaron Gilmore. Furthermore he went on to say that the Resource Management Act stopped a number of projects. The Resource Management Act under Labour gave community groups the right to have a say on developments near them and I certainly support that. But the Government of that member Mr Aaron Gilmore has through its streamlining legislation removed the opportunity for some community groups to have a say when they otherwise would have had that opportunity. That is what that member is actually supporting so he needs to be challenged on those two issues because I think he was erroneous in his presentation of those issues to the Committee. 
But I have concerns about the authority as well. I have concerns in terms of its limited scope; I have said previously in the Chamber that the Supplementary Order Paper I am bringing to the Committee is to ensure that the scope of its consideration can be broadened to include environmental sustainability. I do not think that that is more bureaucracy. In fact I think that that is more responsibility in terms of the nature and role of what the agencies are there to do. I do not believe that the authority in its current scope is adequately equipped for looking at the whole landscape of electricity generation or for ensuring that greater leadership is given on that front. 
My colleague Chris Hipkins raised a number of very good points especially about the smart meters initiative which points to another amendment I have in my Supplementary Order Paper. I have had a presentation from my local lines company WEL Energy that talks about smart meters that not only talk to the customer but also enable better management of electricity use across the grid. In time this is what the future will look like. I certainly endorse the report of the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment and what she promoted in terms of smart meters. That is the technology that we need to look towards. 
I believe that Chris Hipkins is absolutely correct in saying that the Minister should give direction on this front: we should have a smart grid we should be promoting smart meters and we should start now and not wait albeit what we have now are dumb meters and some lines companies like WEL Energy that I believe are taking an innovative and positive step forward in this area because they know what the future landscape will look like. I hope the amendment I have put forward will be considered in that light and will be supported because we know that consumers want to be able to regulate the amount of electricity they use by having better information. 
Some appliances are smart appliances and we are learning from what is happening in Australia where they are already developing smart appliances. It will be only a matter of time until those appliances come here to New Zealand. So having a smart meter in the house where consumers can look at the amount of power they are consuming and regulate themselves I think is a good thing. I think it is really positive when that information is given back and when the utilisation of energy across the grid can be better managed at another level. It is real-time information that is critical in order to make this a great success. 
A number of other matters have been raised in the Committee that I think the Minister in the chair the Hon Phil Heatley needs to take a call on. He has stood only once to respond to some very serious questions that have been raised by members of the Labour team; they deserve to be answered but sadly they have not been.