[rswail]

Smart meters don't make things better or worse, they are technology that enables better time-of-use metering than the century of multiple meters for peak vs off-peak consumption, as well as making meter reading/billing cheaper.

They enable new services like feed-in tariffs and incorporation of V2G and VPP infrastructure.

Rents have not doubled in 5 years.

Rental inflation peaked at ~8% and is now below 4% pa.

https://tradingeconomics.com/australia/rent-inflation

[protocolture]

Well my rent went from 320 to 520. And then they wanted 580 so we are moving to a slightly nicer place for 600. Not quite doubled but near enough. My area has had larger increases than that. Bloke up the road had to have his daughter move home and take up 300 dollars of the rent, which is what her apartment was costing her before covid.

> they are technology that enables better time-of-use metering

Right and we all have to pretend that the technology is neutral and act surprised when it ends up being used for anti consumer purposes? Thats the usual game isn't it?

[rswail]

On rentals: Anecdata vs ABS statistics. No one is arguing that rents haven't gone up, but the rise peaked post COVID at ~8% and are now roughly reverted to the mean of 3-4% pa.

On smart meters:

Victoria has had them for 2 decades now.

If there were anti-consumer uses that our retailers or distributers took advantage of we'd know about them by now.

We've also had a fully privatized grid for quarter of a century, with generators, transmission, distribution, and retail separated.

The rorts have been by the distributors "gold plating" the poles/wires, and some machinations of the NEM by coal/gas generators.

Neither of which were caused by the smart meter rollout.