Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I don't think the House will be surprised to learn that constituents in the honourable member for Durack's electorate drive particularly long distances. The average constituent of the member for Durack drives 23,154 kilometres a year and would save $1,841 a year by having more efficient vehicles from 2028 onwards. The member refers to Western Australia. Perhaps those sorts of savings are why the RAC WA—the peak motoring group in Western Australia that actually represents the interests of motorists, drivers and consumers—called on the government to introduce 'a mandatory impactful national FES', 'aligning Australia with the rest of the developed world' as a top priority. That's exactly what we're doing. We're aligning Australia with the rest of the developed world to give Australians the same access to fuel-efficient vehicles that those in the United States, Europe, New Zealand, China and India have.

The only people who don't have access to those fuel-efficient vehicles as a matter of government policy are the motorists of Australia and Russia. The Leader of the Opposition knows that, and he says, 'nyet'. 'No, we're not having that. Nyet! We're going to stick out there with Russia as the only developed major economy without access to fuel efficiency standards.' Well, that's not good enough, as far as we're concerned. It might be good enough for the Leader of the Opposition, who has no plan for motorists to get access to more efficient vehicles and no plans of his own, despite the fact that, to their credit, the member for Bradfield and the then member for Kooyong tried to implement this policy in 2017, went to the then shadow minister for transport, who is now the Prime Minister of Australia, and said, 'Look, this is going to be controversial, but will we have opposition support?' The then shadow minister for transport said, 'Yes, you will, because it's good policy.' We will back good policy, because that's what leadership looks like. It's seeing a good idea that might not be your idea and backing it. That's what the now Prime Minister did, and he is now the Prime Minister of Australia. The current Leader of the Opposition isn't doing that. Perhaps that's why he won't be Prime Minister of Australia.