Terms mandated, compulsory, standard – do all they have the same meaning?

Avoiding Smart Meter’s in Victoria

(A Manual of facts to help you)

The aim of this web page is to provide you with some little known facts to assist you in your fight to protect your health, privacy and democratic right to say ‘NO’. It has been compiled from personal experience and many hours of research.

Terms mandated, compulsory, standard – do all they have the same meaning?

Are Smart meters "mandated"? To answer this question we must first define ‘mandate’. According to the Australian Oxford Dictionary ‘mandate’ = ‘authority to perform certain tasks’.

Pay attention: authority does not mean obligation. You can do something, but you not have to do it.

The Victorian government and distributors claim that the mandate for the AMI rollout is in the government gazette S200 dated 28^th of August 2007 and specifically sect 14.1a, which requires the distributors to ‘use their best endeavours’ to install remotely read interval meters in every home and small business in Victoria. ‘Best endeavours’ is defined in the Electricity Distribution Code sect 19 and states; ‘in relation to a person, means the person must act in good faith and do what is reasonably necessary in the circumstances’. Now, reading ‘the mandate’ in plain English, it should be read as: ‘the distributors are to act in good faith and do what is reasonably necessary in the circumstances’. NOTHING MORE!

 There is one more Order in Council from 10 December 2013: www.gazette.vic.gov.au/gazette/Gazettes2013/GG2013S439.pdf which use same term "each distributor must use its best endeavours to install a complying remotely read interval meter "

So to answer the original question, yes, there is legislation which requires the distributors to ‘use their best endeavours to install remotely read interval meters’, the distributors have mandate to install them, the meters are mandated.

 

 

Are they compulsory?

According to ‘the mandate’, no they are not! The government/distributors are putting their interpretation on what the legislation says and fail to quote what it actually says!

I do not know any Government-issued document which use term «compulsory» in relation with remotely read electrical meters.

There is no legislation which says a customer cannot refuse to have one or which interpret refusal having Smart meter as offence. It therefore stands to reason, that if a customer says ‘no thanks’, that should be the end of the storey! Sadly, this is not the case.

Is coercion, bullying, trespassing, cutting off padlocks, disconnection - ‘acting in good faith and doing what is reasonably necessary in the circumstances’? The Essential Services Commission has said no. What have they done about it? NOTHING!

Can "non-standard" meters be used?

In agreement with Information from Department of Environment and Primary Industries YES, they CAN:

Where a customer has refused the installation of a Smart Meter, the Government has decided that the costs associated with manual reading may be recovered by a distribution business through an additional fee.
It is anticipated that the fee will be introduced in March 2015.
A distribution business will only be able to recover the costs of maintaining a non-Smart Meter if the customer has actively refused the installation of a Smart Meter.

So this document tells us loud and clear: smart meters are NOT the only option. It just depends on your actions: "if the customer has actively refused ".