STATEMENTS BY SENATORS

Senator BLYTH (South Australia) (13:40): A new financial year means that Labor has another chance to punish aspirational Australians with higher vehicle costs and fewer practical choices. Under Labor's new vehicle efficiency standard, the cost of utes, SUVs and practical work vehicles will be hiked. These are not luxury vehicles; they are vehicles Australians use to earn a living, run a business and raise a family.

For a tradie, a ute is a tool of the trade. It gets the plumber, sparkie, bricklayer, carpenter and their tools to their job site. It is not a luxury or a nice-to-have; it is required.

Yet in the middle of a housing crisis, Labor is making life more expensive for the very tradies we need to build the homes Australians are desperate for. Labor claims to care about the housing crisis, then targets the very vehicles that are used by the people on the tools. Like so many decisions made by this Labor government, it makes absolutely no sense.

For many tradies, farmers and families, the alternatives are ridiculous. A Tesla cannot tow a load, a Nissan Leaf can't travel great distances, and an MG is certainly not going to carry your gear. Labor can talk all it likes about efficiency, but this policy means higher costs and more difficulty for Aussies.

It's not very efficient to do two trips to get your tools to a site. This is about Labor's ideological net zero agenda. They cannot get there without punishing everyday Australians and forcing the country backwards.

Labor thinks their ideology matters more than your livelihoods. This is more than just a tradie tax. It's a tax on work, a tax on small business, a tax on aspiration.

In a housing crisis, it is a tax on the people we are relying on to build the homes this country desperately needs. Labor's ute tax needs to be scrapped.