Perin Davey (NSW, National Party, Shadow Minister for Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As with so many policy issues that we have seen since the change of government, regional and rural Australians are once again the forgotten people in this legislation, the Treasury Laws Amendment (Electric Car Discount) Bill 2022. They've been thrown to the kerb. While the virtue signallers on the other side of the chamber clamber to make expensive cars cheaper so they can demonstrate their climate credentials, we have hundreds—possibly more—of families in rural areas at the present time with no car, no truck and no means of transport, and their roads are being absolutely shredded to pieces. Even when these floods go, buying any car will be a challenge for these people, who will have to face the clean-up costs and the repair bills in their struggle to get back to some semblance of normal life. How do you think those families in our flood effected areas, who are trying to save their homes and furniture, are going to feel when they hear the Albanese government is pushing hard to get legislation through, doing secret deals with the Greens to get legislation through, that gives people who can probably already afford it access to a discounted imported electric car? How do you think our local governments in those areas are going to feel when they realise the Albanese government is pushing hard to legislate to get more vehicles on our roads that contribute nothing to road maintenance, because electric vehicles don't pay the fuel excise?

This is a tax relief for electric vehicles which will undermine our general revenue. How are we going to repair our roads when the whole of Australia is driving around in electric vehicles, even though we don't have the infrastructure to support them yet? Once again, this is a government that has no idea what happens in the engine room of Australia, and, as its budget has demonstrated over and over again, it have no interest in supporting the regions, which are the engine room of our economy. It's just another example of disregard.

For the city dweller, electric cars are an easy way to get to the shops. If the car battery is running low, you can just plug it in. There are numerous recharging stations very close by. Or, as we've seen in the Daily Telegraph and other news, you just run an extension cord out your window to the kerb. Of course, the irony is that, especially here in the ACT—and I know Senator Pocock is very passionate about this bill as well—the ACT government boasts that they are 100 per cent renewable powered when the reality is that overnight, when the lights go out, they connect back to the grid, and all those people plugging their cars in overnight are actually plugging into coal fired power. But we won't let detail get in the way of good virtue signalling!

In our regional communities, however, there aren't endless recharging stations and a trip to the local shop isn't just a kilometre away; it's often many kilometres. If I want to get a bottle of milk, I've got a 36-kilometre one-way trip from my house, and there are no charging stations nearby. There will, hopefully, one day, be such infrastructure in regional Australia, but it's not today. So this discount car buying opportunity is of zero use to regional Australians. Not now, not yet.

Before those opposite start to accuse me and others on this side of not supporting net zero strategies or of being climate Luddites, let me remind you of the coalition's Future Fuels and Vehicles Strategy. That plan recognised that progress must take all Australians along with it. All Australians need to be on the journey to net zero, not just the inner-city dwellers. It must be embraced in step with advances in technology to underpin the changes. There must be investment in the infrastructure across the nation to keep up with those advances. Our plan was well researched and well consulted and was intended to bring long-term benefits to all Australians.

The strategy detailed a technology-led approach to reducing transport emissions while ensuring Australians could drive their preferred type of vehicle, be it petrol, diesel, hydrogen, hybrid—which are now being demonised—or electric powered. The principles that underpinned our policy were to partner with the private sector to support uptake and stimulate co-investment into future fuels, focusing on reducing barriers to the rollout of future fuel technologies. That also was a focus on where infrastructure investment needed to be and expanding consumer choice by enabling informed choice and minimising costs of integration into the grid.

Debate interrupted.